The Fall of Dronid
by Janus2
Summary: War is coming to Gallifrey. The Doctor desperately seeks a peaceful solution, hoping to find a link to the Enemy, searching from the Celesties fortress in Mictlan to the Ancient Libraries of the Old Times in Pangaea. War may be the only outcome as the Doctor races to Dronid, with the Time Lord War TARDIS fleet under his command, hoping to avert the War.
1. Chapter 1

**SUMMARY:**

 **War is coming to Gallifrey. The Doctor has seen echoes of the future conflict since he regenerated. Details of the War have eluded him, even the identity of the Enemy is unknown, the only clue that they may be controlling the near limitless powers of the Ancestor Cells; a form of life totally inimical to Time Lords.**

 **The planet Dronid, once a site of an attempted renegade Time Lord rebellion, now the frontline in this War. Enemy agents lurk on all sides as Time Lord technology is sold on the black market. The Doctor desperately seeks a peace, hoping to find a link to the Enemy, searching from the Celesties fortress in Mictlan to the Ancient Libraries of the Old Times in Pangaea.**

 **With events escalating War may be the only outcome as the Doctor races to Dronid, with the Time Lord War TARDIS fleet under his command, hoping to avert the War. Yet knowing that it must happen, if only to preserve the Timeline...**

* * *

 **CHAPTER ONE**

 **FAREWELL OLD FRIEND**

Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart entered his house to find the lights on in the living room, checked his watch.

16:15

Doris couldn't be in yet, the Brigadier slowly edged forwards until he reached the door, without making too much noise he slowly pushed the door open. There in the corner of the room was the innocuous blue box the Doctor's TARDIS and sitting in one of the armchairs was the Doctor himself. It was as far as the Brig was aware one of the later ones, the one he'd encountered himself twice before, once in Malebolgia along with the girl Charley Pollard, the second time down the phone during the Vore crisis. He seemed very different from the previous meeting's they'd had, his hair was shorter than previously and was a right mess. He'd replaced his green frock coat with what looked like then a leather naval jacket which extended down to his knees, underneath he wore a cream waistcoat, dark red cravat and a crumpled collarless shirt, his trousers seem to have faded from cream to a far lighter colour and in place of his polished shoes he wore a pair of worn caramel brown British Army cavalry boots, all of which seen better days the leather jacket was worn seemed to be covered with scratch marks, the waistcoat showed marks of numerous tears which had been stitched together as did the trousers. On the Doctor's hands the Brigadier saw a series of burn marks, there were similar marks on the sides of the Doctor's face, there was also a brutal scar extending from top right hand side of the Doctor's forehead down over his nose ending just under his left eye. The Doctor seemed not to have noticed the Brigadier's presence, rather than startle his old friend the Brigadier inched forwards, he could see the Doctor was mumbling and his breath, the Brigadier strained to hear what he was saying.

"Shouldn't be alive, why am I… Alive…"The Doctor suddenly looked up and saw his old friend; a broad smile crossed the Doctor's… He took in his old friend's appearance. "Brigadier Sir Alistair Gordon Lethbridge Stewart!"

The Doctor suddenly leapt up and pulled his old friend into a hug, he then dashed over to the mantle place, then all of a sudden he stopped, all of the enthusiasm drained from his body he braced both arms against the mantelpiece and sucked in a deep breath sighing.

"Hello old friend," the Doctor looked down at the floor glancing back up at the Brigadier's face. "Alistair I can't stay for long, I'm going to talk as fast as I can, going to tell you as much as I can, please don't talk until I'm done I need to tell someone this. I need you to understand and I need you to trust me just this once, listen, and don't interrupt. Can I count on you old friend?"

The Brigadier numbly nodded sucking in a breath of his own.

"Of course Doctor, anything, you know that," the Brigadier told him.

Doctor smiled once more, however this time it reached his eyes, they showed not enthusiasm but relief, whatever was going on in Doctor's world, it was serious.

"This is storm brewing Alistair, been brewing for centuries from my point of view, and I know what has to happen, what must happen because I've already seen the other side," the Doctor told him. "I long ago chose the responsibility to do what I had to do, despite the costs despite the consequences to myself I have to be the responsible one now. Over a century that knowledge drove me to distraction; it's what drove me to save Charley Pollard's life in the first place. I thought if I can cheat fate, if I could cheat her fate, change her destiny I might be able to do the same the universe, for Gallifrey, for the _War_. But course it's inevitable, whatever happens I know how this War will end."

The Doctor sat down, he sucked in a deep breath and looked into his old friends eyes, Brigadier could see something different about them, he seemed impossibly older than any time they'd met previously, there was no hope left, no room for second guessing, only resolve. Seeing that look in the Doctor's eyes nearly broke the Brigadier's heart…

* * *

 **Elements of Artwork Courtesy of Time-Lord-Rassilon, (** **time-lord-rassilon.** **deviantart** **)**


	2. Chapter 2

**CHAPTER TWO**

 **OLD FRIENDS**

The Doctor stared at the message from Romana, the message was simple, something he'd arranged over a hundred years before, if he'd been his first or second incarnations the message would have made him want to run as far and fast as he could, as would his fifth incarnation. However this version of the Doctor currently in his eighth regeneration, wasn't like any of those, in character he was something of a mix between his seventh and third incarnations, possessing most of Three's technical skill and a proficiency in hand-to-hand combat greater than any of his previous selves also factoring in a slightly harder approach to life and death, most of the time he did his best to hide that part of himself, his reasoning being the terrible things he'd done in his seventh incarnation. All of which were necessary at the time even with the benefit of hindsight seemed to be the correct decisions, as much he'd like to claim his reticence with that type of mindset was due to moral objections, the Doctor knew in his hearts that it had more to do with what had happened to Hex and Ace's arguments with him. Mel's words still stuck in his mind, ' _You're not the Doctor I knew. You're a liar and a user and quite possibly a murderer. I don't wish to know you anymore!_ '

The Doctor sighed, that was becoming a bad habit, he began to set the coordinates, the last two decades of his life had been hoping to avoid this moment. He'd known it was coming ever since that meeting in the East Indies ReVit Zone, a War was coming. The Great Time War in Heaven. At the time Doctor had first heard about the conflict it had seemed miles off, that hadn't stopped him from taking note of any and all pieces of information about the war he could find, within certain limits of course… For instance he refused to take any action to find out the identity of the enemy in the conflict until he was supposed to know, the temptation to deal with them before the War occurred would have been too great for him to resist.

The TARDIS engines roared to a crescendo as the blue box materialised in space-time, the Doctor edged away from the console and picked up his worn leather naval jacket, for a moment the Doctor indulged his nostalgia as he felt the material he still wished he'd been able to keep his velvet frock coat. The Doctor licked his suddenly dry lips this wasn't going to be a pleasant meeting, although she no longer had to give herself over to the Time Lords for what essentially amounted to slavery she still didn't have a high opinion of them, however she was even more worried about a universe under the control of _Them_.

The Doctor left the TARDIS made a beeline straight for her, to anyone else she simply appeared as an attractive woman with dark red hair and was well built in a muscular rather than a sexy way; however the Doctor was not anyone. She had a name; although she is known across the continuum by a different title the Doctor had and would always call her by the name Compassion. She was as it turned out the most valuable person/item in the entire universe, if the Doctor hadn't made the deal he had made with Romana, the Time Lords would have torn the universe apart to find her. The reason was of course the War, everything thing seemed to be about it these days. Compassion was of course a TARDIS, she was a Type 102 war TARDIS, the most advanced and powerful time ship ever created. If the Doctor hadn't made the deal the Time Lords would have torn universe apart as they wanted Compassion to mother a new generation of type 103 TARDISes to use as weapons in their War.

"Hello Compassion," the Doctor greeted her.

She raised an eyebrow; remote in every sense of word could be used to describe her demeanour, before she had been transformed into a TARDIS she'd been one of the Doctor's companions. Before the Doctor could speak to her any further she seemed to split down the middle, her chameleon circuit was providing an exit point, from the bowels of her interior Nivet stepped forth.

The two Time Lords regarded each other, Compassion reformed and stood off to the side.

"So, it's time..." Nivet half asked, half stated. Of course he'd know, Nivet was from the future, a future from the point of view of Gallifrey at least.

"Yes," the Doctor nodded. "We all knew this would happen, there's a War coming, one that'll threaten all of Space and Time. As much as _parts_ of me would like to run, I know I have to do my duty, but you don't Nivet. You can run if you want."

"Doctor," Nivet started as he walked closer to his fellow Time Lord. "We both swore the same oath..."

The words ran in the Doctor's mind even after all these years; _'I swear to protect the ancient Law of Gallifrey with all my might and brain. I will to the end of my days, with justice and with honour temper my actions and my thoughts.'_ Nodding the Doctor turned to face Compassion.

"We both know you're not the Time Lords biggest fan, I won't blame you if you just left us to fight this War alone-" the Doctor started only for Compassion to interrupt him.

"You're right I'm not the Time Lords biggest fan, but we both know what will happen if this War doesn't go the way we want," Compassion smiled a little at the Doctor's shocked and rather delighted expression. "So to Gallifrey, I'll follow you."

The Doctor nodded, as he headed back inside his time ship, at the same time Nivet re-entered Compassion's interior, her exterior doors sealing behind him as she dematerialised, the Doctor's TARDIS following her.


	3. Chapter 3

**CHAPTER THREE**

 **RETURN TO GALLIFREY**

The Doctor moved around the console, flicking switches and turning dials, he passed the destination monitor, the display told him a set of space-time coordinates only. _The One True Gallifrey._ It was true that there were Nine Gallifrey's, eight were crypto formed to act as bolt holes and decoys for the coming war. The original of course had a rather conspicuous location in Kasterborous, obvious really, especially since a structure know as the _Edifice_ was currently in orbit around that Gallifrey.

The journey was swift and both TARDIS's swiftly materialised in the transdimensional cradles deep in the bowls of the Capitol. The Doctor emerged from his TARDIS to see only two people awaiting him, the faithful CIA coordinator Narvin, who looked ashamed in some manner, and the Lady High President Romanadvoratrelundar, War Queen and Mistress of the Nine Gallifreys, the Doctor gave Narvin a nod of greetings before smiling at Romana.

"Madame President, I've come as you asked," the Doctor started as he turned to gesture at Compassion, Nivet stood guard beside her, a TARDIS and a pilot. "...and Compassion has come of her own free will, as we agreed."

Romana smiled and nodded.

"Of course Doctor, we will take the sample as you described and use it to generate Type 103 war TARDISs, no need for force breeding..." Romana's blue eyes glinted as she took in Compassion's appearance. "Technician, you're dismissed, head for the TARDIS cradles to help ready our fleet."

"Actually, Madam President, I'd like to stay with Compassion," Nivet said as he stood up to Romana, the Doctor smiled in pride. "I am her pilot after all."

"You attest that she is your TARDIS?" Narvin asked stepping forward, the Doctor swiftly realised why Narvin looked ashamed, he'd just observed the Celesties...

"No, she's not my TARDIS, she's her own person, her own TARDIS," Nivet counted, the Doctor smiled in pride at the technicians expanded world view. "I'm just her pilot and I'd hope to say friend."

"Coordinator, he is probably the closest thing to an expert in her systems, would probably help the process along," the Doctor interceded; Romana looked into his eyes for a moment before smiling.

"Very well Technician, you will accompany Narvin to the CIA tower, where you will act as an _observer_ for the process, and if you have any advice..." Romana told him, her tone light, before she turned to the Doctor. "Doctor, you will come with me."

With that Romana turned and headed out, Narvin mumbled a greeting at the Doctor before hurrying off, as the Doctor moved to follow her something grabbed his hand, he turned to see Compassion holding him fast.

"Thank you Doctor," Compassion thanked him, he cold demeanour breaking just for a second, the Doctor smiled amazed by her development since she'd left with Nivet, shrugging the Doctor moved to follow Romana to her destination.


	4. Chapter 4

**CHAPTER FOUR**

 **A DATE WITH THE PRESIDENT**

The Doctor and Romana were silent as they entered her aircar, the journey was swift, but the open‐top vehicle had allowed the Doctor to take in some of the scenery as they zoomed at high speed through the vast hexagonal Panopticon. As they'd swooped down below cloud level, the Doctor figured out the destination, glancing to his side he saw Romana was facing forward, not looking at him.

The driver then banked them into an arc through the mist‐laden air and zoomed between the legs of the massive statue of Omega, which guarded the southern exit. The car had shot out of the Panopticon, scattering a handful of smaller vehicles plying their trade by the exit, and powered out into the heavy sulphurous fug of industrial Gallifrey, before heading up into the Presidential Palace.

Disembarking the car in silence he offered a hand to Romana to help her out, she spared his hand a glance before taking it. She then led him to a balcony overlooking the Capitol beneath them; a table had been set up with two chairs, as the Doctor sat down Romana pulled her collar off before sitting opposite him, a flagon of wine was between them.

"Welcome home Doctor," Romana said her tone even.

"Decidedly icier welcome than I'm used to Romana," the Doctor smiled disarmingly. "Not sure I like it much."

"And I don't like being manipulated Doctor," she told him, he tone still on a single register, but her eyes burnt with rage, she then pressed a few commands into the crystal table top.

An image appeared in the air between them, the image was clearly of Gallifrey, _a Gallifrey._ But the planet wasn't important, it was the structure above the planet that was important, the _Edifice._

"It appears to be warping local space, bending gravity around it, spreading ripples into the local vortex. Your biodata imprint is all over it and it seems to be hewn from solid bone..." Romana trailed off, the implication clear. "And we both know of the Faction's predilection for bone Doctor, tell me what that structure is now."

The Doctor swallowed, he honestly didn't know how successful he'd been manipulating how this version of Romana's third incarnation would end up, but she deserved the truth...

"It's my TARDIS,"

"What?" clearly Romana wasn't expecting that, her eyes widened in shock.

"When I was in that cell in Saudi Arabia I accidently created a Time Corridor to my Third incarnation, because of that link I... he was diverted to the planet Dust." The Doctor swallowed. "While on the planet I encountered agents of the Faction, I was infected with their biodata virus. It began to rewrite me to join their own ranks, usually the virus wouldn't have affected me, but because I was regenerating..."

Romana nodded, when a Time Lord regenerated their immune system essentially 'shut down', otherwise their body would begin to attack the new cells as the body changed.

"However my TARDIS had already run my Timeline, it knew I wasn't supposed to regenerate then," the Doctor leaned forward and took a swig of the wine. "It adapted to form an improvised _Paradox Machine_ ; by taking my infected Timeline into a temporal orbit it kept that version of history as only a possibility. When it became too much the TARDIS broke apart before reforming around the four dimensional Klein bottle which contained the pocket universe created by I M Foreman. In about a day's time a Faction Paradox fleet will begin an attack on Gallifrey I, lead by me."

"Long story short, version of me who fell to the virus, became Grandfather Paradox, 292 years later I broke the Laws of Time to attack Gallifrey in my relative past, using Greyjan as President he was able to use the Matrix to collapse Time Lord history, erasing the other Gallifreys."

"That's why you had us up rate the Transduction barriers," Romana realised. "So that this Gallifrey wouldn't be erased."

"Exactly, my future self planned the assault perfectly, with the Enemy's first strike, as the energy wave pulsed through Gallifrey, the Faction used it to overlay themselves to the High Council chamber," the Doctor seemed to be having trouble by this point. "Grandfather Paradox, the Time Lord once known as the Doctor became 415th President of Gallifrey, however I realised that my Timeline was still in the balance, by firing my TARDIS's weapons system I drained off the last of the energy, causing the Edifice to split open and destroy Kasterberous, in doing so 'resetting' my history so I never arrived on Dust."

"And you couldn't alter events because you'd already seen Gallifrey's future," Romana finished for him.

"Exactly, I couldn't change history, even future history, but I can make sure that the real Gallifrey is safe from my doppelganger, the very moment the Edifice splits open the version of me who became Grandfather Paradox will cease to exist."

Romana nodded.

"Who is the Enemy Doctor?" Romana asked, the Time Lords knew that war was coming, they just didn't know with whom.

"I don't know..." the Doctor told her, gazing right into her eyes so she knew he was telling the truth.


	5. First Interlude

**FIRST INTERLUDE**

 **THE WARIOR'S FIRST BREATHS**

" _...Doctor no more," the Warrior said as he gazed into his reflection, with a sort of cursory, functional gaze. An appraisal. Like a Sergeant inspecting a cadet's uniform._

 _He turned to face the Grand Mother of the Sisterhood of Karn, last remnants of the ancient Cult of Pythia._

" _Thank you, I find your opinion of me to be rather low," the Warrior scoffed at them. "To really believe all the Dalek propaganda I just threw in your faces."_

 _The Grand Mother looked confused, before she started to talk again._

" _There are two stories about you Doctor..." Ohila started._

" _Not My Name!" the Warrior yelled at her._

" _... one version says that you fought in the first three hundred years of the Time War up until Rassilon took the Presidency from Romana..." she stopped when she saw the look of hatred on the Warrior's face. "They then say you disappeared, the other version says you haven't fought in the War at all..."_

" _The first version is true, to set the record straight, the second version is Dalek propaganda, after all if Gallifrey's best Warrior won't fight what hope do regular Gallifreyan troops have," the Warrior told her, then softer he continued. "When Rassilon lead that coup d'état against Romana, when he killed her I felt murderous rage, I've never blamed anyone for anything, hated anyone more than I did Rassilon at that moment. I wasn't fit to fight in that state, so I had to take a break, it was only meant to be a week. But the Daleks found me; they projected a false time spur into the vortex, sent my TARDIS a hundred years into the future, to the present. Due to the nature of the Time Locks I can't go back to where I was dislocated, I have to fight on. Only my old body had a flaw, not that he couldn't fight a war, the opposite in fact, he was the responsible one, ready to take on the responsibility to walk and fight where no one else would dare. The flaw was, I love Romana, and I could never fight on the same side as the man who killed her, regeneration was the way to go, I had already fixed how my regeneration would turn out, I just needed a catalyst."_

" _A cover story..." the Warrior walked to the cave entrance, he turned to face Ohila, whispering into her ear. "I suggest you take cover; if I'm not mistaken and I rarely am the Nightmare Child is nearby."_

 _Without warning a horrific screech burst through the air, the planet itself trembled._

" _I'll try to draw it off, but I can't make any promises," with that the Warrior pulled out his Stattenheim remote control summoning his TARDIS, this time he was ready, first he would end the War, then he was coming for Rassilon..._


	6. Chapter 5

**CHAPTER FIVE**

 **THE SITUATION ON DRONID**

The Doctor now stood beside Romana in one of Gallifrey's Temporal Monitoring Chambers, in front of him was the image of the planet known as Dronid, the planet had always been important for the Time Lords, recently more so. Only a few centuries before the Doctor was Loomed a group of Cardinals from the High Council declared with much pomp and circumstance that Gallifrey was no longer fit to govern the Web of Time, citing Morbius as the reason. Of course the Time Lord response was devastating, by _ignoring it._ This is actually more dangerous than it sounds, this attack of ignorance as it's called essentially prevents the Great Eye of Harmony from seeing a timeline, this would mean that the target would be ungoverned by the certainty of history, thus tearing the planet apart by random probability forms, local time would completely destabilise, it's likely that the renegades attempted to stabilise Time, however with no link to Gallifrey they wouldn't have had much success.

Obviously most of the renegades eventually returned, while some disappeared the rest were brought to justice, however a large amount of Time Lord technology was left behind on the planet. Even the most naive Time Lord could have predicted that the planet would be a magnet for those who wanted high end Time tech.

In order to prevent this, the High Council had installed so called ' _world engines'_ into the depths of the planet. The devices were capable of detecting any large-scale abuses of time technology on the surface or high-level technology arriving from outside the biosphere, if they experimented with it to too great a degree, or if anyone else arrived to experiment with it, then the environment itself would attempt to shut them down. Weather systems would be altered; programmed spore patterns would be released into the atmosphere; even geological disruptions could be created by the engines, if all else failed. Any major time incursion and Dronid it would be met with another "storm", only on a localised scale but even so enough to wipe any abusive time technology from the face of the Web of Time. The Doctor didn't necessarily approve, but it wasn't like he could claim the moral high ground, especially not after the actions he'd been forced to take in his Seventh incarnation, having been forced to kill 600,000,000 humans to prevent the end of all life on Earth stood out particularly.

"What exactly is the situation Madam President?" the Doctor asked as he took in the images of Dronid, while the Doctor knew that large scale attempts for alien time powers to invade the world were doomed to failure criminal agencies were more or less free to operate, providing they were subtle.

"After the use of Free Time terrorists against us, I realised that the same tactic could be employed on Dronid," Romana started as she gestured to two sets of dots on the planet, half were red, the other blue. "Criminal organisations across the planet are involved in all manner of tech deals, slave deals and high order weapons exchanges, some may have even been to the governments of our allied time powers in the Monan Host and the Warpsmiths of Phaedon."

The Doctor nodded, such organisations would certainly explain the increase in time active races on the years since Morbius' Presidency.

"One of the off world groups there has not only gained power over the majority of the syndicates, it also seems to have a kind of deep-rooted philosophy," Romana continued as more images of the activities played out on the monitors.

"And you think that this is a manifestation of the Enemy?" the Doctor asked as the images aroused disgust and the wanton brutality.

"Exactly, we've tried to retroactively alter the planets history, to stop them, however..." Romana trailed off as an operator headed over to join them.

"Madam President, we've tried again to rewrite local history using our Quantum Crystallisers, however every time we try to set a more preferable timeline into focus the extradimensional constant seems to raise, causing our version of events to collapse," the technician took a breath, something like this had never happened before. "Whoever we're up against my Lady, can match us move for move."

"In other words, if we want to solve this, we're going to have to do it at ground level..." Romana concluded as the technician returned to his duties.

"You want to send an agent down there?" the Doctor asked to confirm.

"Yes, we need to get ahead of this, but it's too late in the game to build a new organisation up from the ground, even with our methods." Romana started to look at the Doctor in a way he wasn't particularly comfortable with. "We need to infiltrate and take control of a group already present on the planet. We chose Faction Paradox."

"No," the Doctor breathed in response looking at Romana in fear, surely she wouldn't be asking what he thought she was asking.

"I haven't even asked you to infiltrate them yet-" Romana started.

"And you can't, Romana," the Doctor interrupted, heedless of the audience. "I will do almost anything you ask, any mission, but to infiltrate _them_ after everything they put me through..."

Romana swallowed, seeming to consider his words, a brief silence ensured as the two Time Lords who'd held the title of Lord High President regarded each other.

"I could force you to go," she told him, hesitation clear in her eyes.

"I know you could Romana," the Doctor swallowed. "But if you did you wouldn't be the Romana I..."

The Doctor stopped, not finishing the sentence; he didn't need to say that to her, he never did.

"I wouldn't have anyway, you're known to the Faction," Romana breezed the conversation off, moving on.

"So you... you're sending one of our own to infiltrate the Faction?" the Doctor asked coming back to Romana's side. "It'll be difficult, the Faction aren't exactly quick to trust."

"I know,"

"I'll help you, tell whoever you're sending everything I know, but I won't go there myself..." the Doctor stopped to see Romana gazing at him.

"Thank you..." she breathed before returning to her work, the moment broken, they had work to do.


	7. Chapter 6

**CHAPTER SIX**

 **HERO WORSHIP**

The Doctor had been lead around the Capitol by Guards, however unlike the good old ceremonial Chancellery Guards these were full on soldiers, their armour wasn't ceremonial, it was purely functional. The Doctor had been considering the implications of the coming War on Gallifreyan society; however nothing he had thought of had come close to the idea that this War would be actually fought with Soldiers... To think of it, for ten million years, since the end of the Time Wars and the banishment of Yssgaroth, there'd been no military on Gallifrey. Just the Chancellery Guard and the Celestial Intervention Agency, but now Gallifrey had an army; the Looms were working overtime to produce new soldiers. The House Military it was called, apparently headed up by a General who ultimately answered to Coordinator Narvin, although however long that'd last was anybody's guess, especially if open war broke out. The three of them eventually met up with Narvin and boarded what looked to the Doctor like a Skimmer, however the old form of transport had been massively upgraded. New weapons modules were installed on the front and sides of the vehicles, a quick glance told the Doctor that they were Parallel Canons, the message was clear, attack Gallifrey and we'll be ready for you...

The looks the two soldiers had been giving the Doctor since they'd seen him was a little much, as was Narvin's amused grin. The Doctor knew he wasn't exactly a renegade, not really. He hadn't really been a renegade since his Second incarnation had willingly returned to Gallifrey following Serenadellatrovella's death, but he wasn't quite used to how other Time Lords saw him. The constant hero worship and admiring gazes was a little much, and if Narvin was to be believed many in the academy wanted to become like him, he knew many of his exploits had been romanticised, a madman with a TARDIS on a great adventure was one story, however the Doctor knew it wasn't anything like that, not really. Living in his world was hell, fighting a war every day, deciding who loved and who died, if they were forced to live his life even for a moment... well they wouldn't think of him as a hero anymore, only a right monster could do the things the Doctor had done and still look himself in the mirror.

" _Sir, sir..."_

He was brought out of his thoughts when he heard one of the soldiers trying to get his attention.

The Doctor snapped out of it and focused on the soldier.

"Yes soldier, what is it?" The Doctor asked his tone hardening, the same tone of voice his Seventh incarnation usually used, what was it he'd told Ace, _in an authoritarian society, people obey the voice of authority._

"Sorry sir, I was just wondering if I could have your autograph?" the soldier asked raising a data pad to arm level with the Doctor.

The Doctor gaped before blinking rapidly, he saw Narvin's smirk grow in the corner of his eye.

"Sure," the Doctor took the pad and use the touch screen to input his signature. "And your name soldier?"

The Doctor never once lost the hard edge to his voice.

"Gastron sir, Gastronsheverell of the House of Ixion," Gastron told him.

The Doctor added the name to his signature before sealing it with his seal as Ordinal-General of the House of Lungbarrow, not a seal he used often...

"Couldn't have been easy for you to get ahead coming from that House," the Doctor remarked.

"No sir, qualified as a Junior Time Lord, sided with Romana during the civil war, when the House Military opened in response to the danger of the War, decided to join, didn't fancy the CIA, to many liars and spies." Gastron told the Doctor, not noticing Narvin's discomfort.

The Doctor however did.

"We'll good to see that someone can see the truth, aye Coordinator?" the Doctor smiled as he looked at Narvin.

The CIA coordinator glared at Gastron who looked away, the glint in the Doctor's eye told the Doctor that he didn't mean it.

"How about we stow the chatter from now on," Narvin suggested.

The Doctor nodded in turn turning in his seat to see the other soldier looking sheepish and handing over a dataslate, _this was going to be a long trip..._

"Does anyone else want an autograph?" the Doctor asked, more than a little frustrated when the vast majority of the crew, including the skimmers pilot turned to say yes. " _Prydon's savers..."_

 _This was definitely going to be a long trip._


	8. Chapter 7

CHAPTER SEVEN

THE HOUSE MILITARY

The Doctor strode into the House Military command suite in the city of Arcadia, many functionaries speed around the room adjusting displays and setting up new holographs. At the centre stood a Time Lord wearing light blue robes with a full collar, a Time Lord of the Cerulean.

"General," Narvin called as he and the Doctor headed over to him at the holographic table.

"Co-ordinator sir!" the Time Lord, apparently a 'General' saluted.

Narvin waved the salute away.

"Yes thank you, and this is the Doctor," Narvin said as he gestured to the Doctor.

The 'Generals' eyes widened a little as he turned to face the living legend that was 'the Doctor'.

"It's an honour sir," the General reached out his hand to shake the Doctor's, the Doctor took the Time Lords hand and shook it in turn. "The name's Ventak sir, it's an honour. Really Doctor an absolute honour."

The Doctor grimaced as Ventak fawned over him, if _everyone_ on this planet was like this he really was doomed...

"Of course, look General..." the Doctor tried to get a word in.

"I'm sorry, but it's such an honour to meet you, I've read about your exploits, the War against the Elder Gods, Omega, the Word Lord..." Ventak carried on gushing, the Doctor tuned most of it out, he saw Narvin casting an amused grin at him.

" _... and there was that time with the Ferutu_ ,"

"General Ventak!" the Doctor suddenly cut in, in as harsh a voice he could manage. "General Ventak," softer this time. "It was my understanding that I was being brought her to brief an agent of your of what I know about the Faction Paradox, not to be fawned over."

 _Clearly picked up more from the Brigadier than I realised,_ the Doctor thought.

"Of course, sorry sir," Ventak responded, suitable abashed. "You'll find Agent Serenadvorophrenaltid in the next room."

"Thank you," the Doctor strode off, determined not to break step, he was aware of Narvin following him.

Imperiously slamming the door open the Doctor saw a Time Lady sitting at a large golden table; she jumped slightly as the Doctor headed in, her eyes widened in recognition as she jumped to attention.

"Coordinator sir!" she salted Narvin.

"At ease agent, this is the Doctor," Narvin started, seeing her eyes widen he continued. "Yes, _the_ Doctor, he's here to provide intelligence for your mission to Dronid."

Narvin turned to the Doctor who nodded at him before turning to smile and wave at Serena.

"Doctor, I have to meet with Cardinal Zorac in twenty microspans,"

"Very well Coordinator, I'll take it from here," the Doctor shook Narvin's hand, before turning to face Serena.

The Doctor watched as Narvin headed out before sitting opposite Serena, he noticed a pair of black robes in the seat beside her. The Doctor eyed her as he picked up a half bone mask and weighed it in his hands.

"First of all, how do you intent to arrive inside the Factions base?" the Doctor asked, he had to start somewhere.

"I'll position my TARDIS in a stealth temporal orbit, when they attempt one of their Loa rituals I'll align a Time Corridor and show up at the conclusion, present myself as a higher up in the Faction saying that the Loa want me to take charge." Serenadvorophrenaltid told him.

The Doctor rolled his eyes before clearing his throat.

"Okay, first point, the Faction are crazy voodoo cultists but they're not primitive fools," the Doctor started. "Secondly they do have means to commune with the Eleven Day Empire; any fraudulent identity you can come up with could easily be discovered."

"I considered that, and by using my TARDIS I can set up false communiqués, routed through the telepathic centres of my brain, gives me a false profile, all I need."

The Doctor nodded thoughtfully, he picked up the mask once more.

"This won't work," he told her.

"What do you mean I'm fully trained, I've read all the files-" Serenadvorophrenaltid's rose in anger.

"One, reading files isn't the same as actual experience, take this mask for instance," the Doctor said as he brought the bone mask up so that it was level with her gaze.

"What's wrong with it, it's based on Matrix records," Serenadvorophrenaltid rose to defend the agency's efforts.

"That's my point, it's all to average, too calculated, too regular," the Doctor gently placed the mask on the table. "Faction masks are from the skulls of Time Lords infected by the Yssgaroth virus, Vampire Lords. As such each mask is different; they're harvested from victims, not mass produced based on an assortment of features. You want to succeed you need to add some irregularities."

That seemed sufficient to placate the Time Lady, who nodded, eyes downcast as she conceded his point.

"Now, what rank do you intend to be on the mission and what's your opinion on lesser species..." the Doctor began to ask, he wasn't going to stay and ramble on information on the files, this was about attitude, Faction Cousins were trained to see Time Lords miles off. She needed to blend in, not just physically; they had to believe she had the right attitude.


	9. Chapter 8

**CHAPTER EIGHT**

 **KNOWING THY ENEMY**

The Doctor stormed into the CIA building, ignoring the incredulous stares he was getting he reached the main security desk, two agents moved to greet him. "Which transdimensional cradle is being used to take Compassion's sample?" the Doctor asked, pretending not to notice the glances the two agents shared as they fingered their stasers. "I'm sorry sir, but that's restricted information," the first one said moving forward to restrain the Doctor; however he was stopped by a glare from the Time Lord. The Doctor's glare could have itself described the Time Lords, impossibly old, and incredibly wise, full of knowledge of Time, capable of freezing suns, burning worlds, full of power. "I think you'll find I'm cleared for that information," the Doctor stepped forward, the guard having to look right into his eyes. "Try and stop me if you want, go take that staser, _end my life."_ "I can't!" the guard cried out, feeling the least powerful person in the room. "Why? You're the one with the gun," the Doctor's voice dropped so it sounded harsh gravelly, no one dared interfere. "Go on, try to stop me." The Doctor walked past the guard who'd gone as pale as a sheet, anger clear in his eyes, everyone's eyes followed the Doctor, not one of them daring to follow.

The Doctor stormed through the building until he reached the correct cradles, his advance slowed as he took in the scene, Nivet stood by a console observing the twisting singularities and growing chronoplasmic outer TARDIS shells. Compassion stood nearby watching with feigned disinterest, but otherwise unworried.

"Compassion, we need to talk," he told her as he came alongside.

She cast a glance to him, but stayed focused on the young TARDISes.

"About what?" Compassion asked her regular demeanour in place.

"The Enemy," the Doctor told her. Compassion raised an eyebrow.

"What makes you think I know who they are?" Compassion replied, something in her eyes wasn't right.

"I think you know more than you've told Nivet, more than you've told me," the Doctor told her. "We're still link, our symbiotic bond; it may not be as strong as the link with my TARDIS I can sense that you know more..."

"And how does that feel, _snail?"_ this time Compassion turned to face the Doctor, a smug expression in her eyes.

The Doctor prepared to reply, he knew she had found something, he hadn't quite realised when he first saw her, it hadn't been until he'd been briefing that Time Lady agent, as soon as it hit him he'd raced back to the Capitol to talk to her.

He opened his mouth to reply.

" _Doctor!_ " the two turned as Romana charged into the room, having been alerted to his presence as soon as he reached the scaphe port.

"Ah Madam President, Compassion was just about to tell us something she'd learnt about the Enemy," the Doctor grinned impishly as he turned to face Compassion, Romana quickly rounded on the Sentient TARDIS.

Compassion narrowed her eyes at the Doctor before she began to talk.

"I don't know much, the Enemy's keeper their identify secret, the closest I got was a rep, one of their proxies." Compassion took a glance between Romana and the Doctor. "It was a Vampire, a direct descendant of the Yssgaroth, they were using it to disrupt the rift in the Medusa Cascade."

The Doctor suddenly straightened alert, while Romana looked confused.

"I think they were trying to access the Old Times," Compassion told them.

"But, the back time buffers..." Romana trailed off, as every Time Lord knew travel into Gallifrey's past was impossible.

"Romana, you know as well as I do that when Glospin first confronted me I took a TARDIS into the Old Time using the Hand of Omega," the Doctor reminded her.

Romana nodded in reply.

"They wanted to reach a point where they could destroy Gallifrey with ease,"

"But... they can't, if we never became Time Lords then..." Romana gaped with horror.

"They would have to be pretty confident about dealing with the Primeval forces," the Doctor mused, the likes of Fenric and the Mi'en Kalarash flashed in his mind.

"So speaks our resident expert," Compassion said, causing Romana to wryly grin at him.

The Doctor raised an eyebrow before returning to his discussion with Compassion.

"What happened to the Vampire?" the Doctor asked hoping to interrogate it, at the very least they could use a mindprobe.

"Atomised," Compassion told him, shrugging.

The Doctor sighed angrily and began to pace, something wasn't ringing true, _how could he not know what was going on?_ He was the _Doctor_ , the Kar Faraq Gatri, the man who took on the Elder Gods and beat them at their own game. Tricked the Daleks into destroying Skaro, used Validium and ensured Lady Peinforte went mad so she couldn't reveal her knowledge, that reminded him, he really must check she hadn't written anything down...

"I need to get out there..." the Doctor moaned as he looked around the small room. "Compassion, can you uplink everything you got into my TARDIS, I need everything you've got. Madam President, permission to go on a reconnaissance mission, try to find out who the Enemy is."

Romana nodded.

"Good luck Doctor," Romana nodded, the Doctor spared one glance at Compassion before opening their symbiotic bond, _see you soon._ He took off in a run to the TARDIS cradles. Already thinking of places to search, there'd have to be some clue, somewhere.


	10. Second Interlude

**SECOND INTERLUDE**

 **ARANAGING A REGENERATION**

 _The Doctor stood at the heart of his regenerating_ TARDIS _,_ _at the moment it was more like the plans for_ _a huge building_ _–_ _lines,_ _ideas,_ _possibilities, shimmering walls and floors_ _,_ _faintly_ _gre_ _y_ _._

 _It wasn't always like this, the Vitreous Time infection had spread far, if it hadn't been for his younger self, Mary and loath as he was to admit it; Percy Shelly they wouldn't have made it. They'd survived, obviously, but_ _t_ _he_ _T_ _ARDIS h_ _ad been worn down this dreamy_ _space_ _._

 _The Doctor checked the readouts, his hands still shaking from the burns he'd taken. Most other Time Lords would have fallen to the infection, but not him, he'd fought in the first battle of the War, he was Time's Champion, he'd faced down the Elder Gods, he wasn't going to die of a remote weapon._

 _The visions still shocked him, the level he'd go to, the depths he would sink, to use Validium, all of it like that..._

 _He needed to change; he needed to create a fixed point, an instance where he'd be able to force 'his' version of events onto the universe. Give him a fresh perspective._

 _Finding the right circumstances was the first priority, forcing a regeneration like this, well... on the front with the Timelines so distended... wouldn't work as well. So a death away from the Time Fronts, to be honest, not what he'd have liked. Going out fighting the Daleks, or finally ending Rassilon for good, that's the ways he'd have liked to go._

 _The Doctor laughed, the first time in centuries, he remembered everything now,_ everything, _it wouldn't last, with every regeneration the memories all got mixed up again. All but his immediate Predecessor didn't know of his true nature, would his successor? No! The Doctor took a deep breath; Rassilon is on our side, even the thought of that sickened the Doctor more than anything in the universe. This couldn't go on, he focused._

 _It wasn't hard, many Time Lords did it,_ Romana did it, _another wave of hate, a different source._

 _The Doctor imagined a new incarnation; he pieced it together in his mind, around the age in human chronological terms this body was now. Good he needed that. Now for the mind, he began to image a caldron, Leela had once described regeneration as mixing a potion, he threw in the characteristics he wanted, ruthlessness, spontaneity, cunning, his Seventh incarnations 'spark', anger and a sense of responsibility; to do what needed to be done. The Doctor stopped to observe this 'new' Doctor, no that wasn't right, yes the 'Doctor' was a legendry warrior, feared even by the Elder Gods, but to fight with Rassilon, no. No Doctor could work with Rassilon, he'd have to be what he was_ before, _had there been a before..._

 _He remembered the lesson he'd learnt in his Seventh incarnation, no matter what face he wore he was still the Doctor._

 _To fight shoulder to shoulder with Rassilon once more, he couldn't be the Doctor of Lungbarrow, Susan had chosen the name, and what was a name. He needed to be what he once was, something Other..._

 _The console bleeped, a signal came through the nonexistent speakers._

"Help me, please. Can anyone hear me?"

 _Human more than likely, what was it with humans and getting themselves into trouble, the Doctor was ready to just materialise around her when he saw the planet she was heading towards... Karn._

 _The Doctor smiled, this could work, just need to fool the Sisterhood into giving him some of the Elixir, but if they had any link to Gallifrey..._

 _If they had contact with Gallifrey, then Rassilon would be involved and if he was involved the Elixir would likely contain poison. A simple test of Traps, the Doctor knew that during his enforced absence from the Frontlines the Daleks had used propaganda to make people think he wasn't involved during the War, absolute nonsense of course, anyone who bought it had no understanding of who he is, but only the Time Lords know for sure..._

 _It would be a simple test, not one he liked, pretending to be a coward, but if it worked..._

 _The Doctor_ _dashed_ _round the big fuzzy_ _blur that_ _somehow suggested a control console_ _. THe TARDIS still_ _wasn't capable of generating_ _a convincing environmental_ _metaphor;_ _a human would be seeing lots of weird things_ _, but to the Doctor it all made sense; he was a Time Lord after all._

 _He continued to hear the woman's cries for help as he reached the cockpit._

"I'm a doctor. But probably not the one you're expecting..."

 _The Doctor started on autopilot, simple enough just a little charm, get her moving, but how far could he take her, the last bulkhead should be right. A failed last minute escape, an accurate metaphor for his life..._

"Don't worry; it's bigger on the inside,"

 _It followed naturally; the Doctor was always surprised at how easy it was to manipulate humans._

"Who can tell the difference anymore?"

 _Okay, that stung a little, no one ever said that the Time Lords were perfect but, oh, who was he kidding, Rassilon was just as deranged as Davros, maybe even more so._

"I'm not leaving this ship without you,"

 _A little over the top perhaps, but it seemed to do the trick, the Doctor kept on hammering at the door, all the while withdrawing into himself, if his plan failed, he'd need a plan B._

 _He felt a pang of sympathy for her, but her death was a fixed point, as he'd always said;_ 'Physiscs is a bitch'

 _He closed his eyes as he felt the impact; falling to the ground he entered a healing trance, he stopped his hearts and waited. He could last a little while; swiftly he was found and brought back to the Sisterhood's cave._

 _They fed him small amounts of the Elixir, presumably to bring him back from the brink; he gave it a couple of minutes as he considered how to come back. Quiet and dignified, or loud, shouting about the woman he knew he couldn't save, if it were a choice he'd go for dignified, but for his scheme to work..._

"Cass!"

 _Some of the Sisterhood were taken aback by his call; the Grand Mother seemed to think she had the high ground, seeming to believe that he'd sacrificed himself..._

 _He played along._

"The War between the Daleks and the Time Lord threatens all of reality. You are the only hope left,"

 _Straight to the big guns, well, the Doctor needed the Elixir, but he needed to be sure that they'd have no contact with Rassilon, his only option was to pretend to be a coward. Not ideal, but it might allow him to get away with the biggest lie in his life._

"It's not my War. I will have no part in it,"

 _Anyone who really knew him would know that was a lie, but with only rumours..._

"I call myself the Doctor,"

 _It used to mean teacher, he added in his mind, recently I've been thinking that my real name should be Ka Faraq Gatri..._

 _The Doctor watched as they brought the girl, Cass in, they really thought they could pull his heartstrings, even Mel wouldn't have bought his performance._

"She didn't miss much. It's very nearly over,"

 _All too true, and this body will never give up, in this mind I'll do anything. I am the Doctor, the traveller from beyond time. I am the Sandman, The Oncoming Storm. I am the Ka Faraq Gatri, destroyer of worlds. I am what the monsters have nightmares about..._

"Warrior?"

 _She answered his request, it didn't matter what she gave him, this regeneration was fixed, the version of him to come was already in place, he just needed a catalyst._

 _Grace, Chang, Benny, Sam, Stacey, Ssard, Izzy, Fey, Kroton, Destrii, Fitz, Compassion, Miranda, Anji, Trix, Samson, Gemma, Mary, Charley, C'Rizz, Lucie, Tamsin, Molly, Liv, Helen._

 _Oh so many to name, and Romana, I'm so so sorry._

 _The next thing he knew was agony, the Elixir was trying to make him change, the Doctor didn't let it, he changed faster. The Elixir burnt away as he once more got to his feet. He looked to his reflection, it had worked._

"Doctor no more,"


	11. Chapter 9

**CHAPTER NINE**

 **THE SEARCH**

The TARDIS landed slowly, the Doctor emerged, having left his jacket in the TARDIS, good thing too, the planet was essentially a massive desert. Hot, dusty and dry in other words.

Raising his hand to ease the glare of it's sun he headed onwards. A Pyramid loomed in front of him, he sucked in a lungful of hot and dry air, what else would he expect on Phæster Osiris, he'd used the _Hand_ to get here, the Time Lords weren't exactly happy, but only the Doctor or Omega could ever control the thing, apart from nominees of course.

Searching for an enemy that could threaten the Time Lords, that was a struggle, Greyjan had a good theory with the 'Ancestor Cells' but it was just that, a theory, from what he'd learned of the Enemy they seemed more than that. By definitions the Cells couldn't have any intelligence.

There'd been plenty of species from the Old Time, races like the Constructors of Destiny, the Archons, the Fendahl and the Osirians, all races apart from the Elder Gods that were forged in the same fire that made the Time Lords, all possible suspects, Rassilon, Omega and the Other were only able to make Gallifreyans Time Lords because the other races weren't focused on mastering time.

The Enemy had to be one of them.

To find out who the Enemy is meant hunting down the remaining races, if that meant going back into the Old Time himself, crossing his own timeline in the biggest possible way, so be it...

The Doctor entered the hall of records, the vast Pyramid was hundreds of times larger than the Great Pyramid in Egypt, he'd arrived before Horus and Sutekh had gone to war. It was a matter of historical fact that few Osirans survived the destruction of their world, those that did pursued Sutekh over half of the universe until they gave their lives to imprison him on Earth. Although Sutekh had tried to escape the Doctor's previous incarnation had been able to trap the horror in a Time Loop.

None of that interested the Doctor, the reason he was here was to search their records, he was looking for records of diasporas, just like on Gallifrey it was possible that Osirans having left Phaester Osiris where still out there, and any group of them could become the Enemy. Although the motivation was beyond him...

The Doctor spent hours reading their history books, hearing their views on the Old Time was fascinating in itself, but so far he'd not seen any suggestion that a large group had left their home world.

The Doctor carefully replaced a scroll when he saw a shadow come over him, a slight tickle at the edge of his mind brought a rare sensation forward, fear, it'd been a long time since he'd felt fear. The Doctor swallowed, he knew who was behind him.

The Doctor turned to face the newcomer only to be pinned back by a massive psychic force; green eyes glowed with malevolent intent, _Sutekh._

The Doctor gritted his teeth in agony as he took a step forward despite his agony; his telepathic defences had developed since his first meeting with Sutekh. If his past incarnation hadn't been able to keep Sutekh from his memories of the Elder Gods he'd never have been able to trap that abomination in that ouroboros loop.

The two beings faced each other down, both were ephemerals, but they where both the highest of the ephemerals. The Doctor was a Time Lord, connected to the fabric of time itself, existing as the observer, crystallising timelines as he went. Sutekh, a powerful telepath, telekinetic and astral projector, along with other powers, about as close to omnipotent as you could get without being bound by the Ancient Covenants.

"Most honourable Sutekh, I bid you welcome," the Doctor groaned out through gritted teeth.

The pain stopped.

Sutekh's eyes had ceased their glow.

"You dare to welcome me to the sacred library of the Ship of a Thousand Years..." Sutekh sneered.

"I seek knowledge," the Doctor responded evenly, he couldn't afford to antagonise Sutekh, his defences might be good, by if Sutekh became determined to rip through his memories then the Doctor would only be able to stop him for a while.

"You are a Time Lord..." Sutekh accused.

"Yes, but I serve at the behest of the Menti Celesti, the Guardians of the Six-Fold realm. I am Time's Champion, oh most mighty Sutekh," the Doctor told the Osiran, reluctantly.

A sound approaching an amused laugh came from Sutekh, the Doctor shifted uncomfortably.

"Well then, Time's Champion. I offer you an alliance, serve me truly and together we will overthrow your masters, we can rule eternity forever." Sutekh offered the Doctor, unknowingly foreshadowing the offer made to the Doctor's fourth incarnation so many centuries from the now.

"Oh, most mighty Sutekh, I must decline," the second the words left his mouth Sutekh's eyes glowed once more.

"You dare to refuse me!" Sutekh roared.

"Yes, because I know that centuries from now the whole of Phæster Osiris will be at your command, that Osiris will be dead and buried, that your name will be respected and recognised for the power you posses, all the way from the Delphate Cluster to Alphalis and Trigellia. You are meant for greatness Sutekh, but unless you let me complete my mission none of your power will mean anything," the Doctor stepped forward so he was eye to eye with the Beast. "Because unless I succeed all of Time will collapse, I need to go Sutekh, try to stop me if you want, but you will be dooming yourself."

Without waiting for a reply the Doctor turned and walked off, Sutekh followed the Doctor's path, he considered stopping the Time Lord, Time's Champion's path, but stopped. The Osiran Hegemony was mighty and had existed since the Old Time, they had practiced the Art, watched scared as the Elder Gods ravaged the universe, a universe now controlled by Time Lords and Osirans rather than those great and powerful beings, and if one order of Gods could fall to lesser, then so could the Great Osiran Hegemony...


	12. Chapter 10

**CHAPTER TEN**

 **THE MIDNIGHT CATHEDRAL OF THE CONSTRUCTORS OF DESTINY**

Millions, perhaps billions of years ago, gods had walked amongst the stars. They had graced countless worlds, influenced cultures, altered societies, shaped the course of history.

Now the majority had gone, their time over, their existence all but forgotten to the lesser species, sometimes legends whispered in the shadows of 'touched' worlds.

But they had left traces.

The Time Lords, destroying Minyos, colonising Drornid and Trion, interfering with Planet 5; the Osirans, completing their millennia-long hunt for the renegade Sutekh on Earth and Mars; the Racnoss, their spun Web Ships lying in the depths of many worlds dormant; the Jagaroth and the Daemons, both meddling with human development...

The there were the Elder Gods themselves, beings like Fenric, Azathoth, the Great Intelligence, whispers and phantoms, and of course highest of all the Gods of Ragnorok, believed by Rassilon to have destroyed the previous universe, still Time-Locked in their pocket dimension on the planet Segonax.

But some where forgotten, these beings were older than any of the surviving races from the Old Time, species that'd persevered and developed great civilisations despite the chaos that enveloped Eternity.

But there were still traces; artefacts, languages, cities, planets.

They had touched and influenced even the Gallifreyans before they emerged from the marshes; the builders of the Midnight Cathedral.

Carefully manoeuvring the Doctor materialised his TARDIS within a small section of an enormous underground cave-system, one that was far from natural. The Midnight Cathedral had been carved from the ancient rock a hundred and fifty million years ago, before the 'Silurians' had become sentient, long before they ruled the blue world above them in the Eocene period. It had been abandoned soon after, but even the Matrix hadn't known why. All it had on file was that the Constructors of Destiny had been persuaded to leave the galaxy, leaving the Midnight Cathedral as a memorial. A forbidden, sacrosanct place.

The Doctor knew why, but that didn't matter, what he needed was to trace the Constructors of Destiny if he could.

The structure was about one hundred metres high and three hundred across, with a vast, domed and vaulted ceiling of unearthly blue stone, every inch covered in detailed inlay – he had seen those details just as they were during his last visit, a blue marble altar lying between two of the supporting arches.

Angels and devils, fighting and uniting, committing acts of unspeakable atrocity and unbearable good. The images should have moved him in some way, but the Doctor was above the effect of the artwork, he'd seen it all before, some of it with his own eyes.

The Doctor glanced at the lash up the Master had used in an attempt to gain access to the Lux Aeterna, he paid it little mind, passing the statue of Kronos he found a series of engravings. The TARDIS hadn't translated it, of course it hadn't, TARDISes had inbuilt safeties since the days of Rassilon and the Other themselves. The language was from the Old Times, in kinship it was similar to that of the Karnas'koi; the group of five beings who were of the lesser Gods, beings that predated our universe.

Compassion wasn't idly joking when she said the Doctor was the resident expert, he had fought the Gods of Ragnorok through all time, he'd bested the Black and White Guardians, held the Key to Time twice.

The Doctor's eyes glowed, the swirling gold Seal of Rassilon showed his allegiance as he read the words, Quantum Mnemonics, the old universe's equivalent of Block Transfer Computations. More than just language, the words, phrases changed the fabric of the universe itself, the Doctor was already countering the effects, he couldn't tear his eyes from the Dark Power, but he was able to contain it, the power of the Block Transfer Computations matching that of the Old Time, just.

The Doctor jumped as he heard a crash, the power of the Old Time died, the forces carved there exhausted. The Doctor thought he saw a figure briefly, a smell of roses filled his nostrils as he followed her path.

Nothing, he searched as far as he could yet found nothing, except an inscription in Old High Gallifreyan, it was simple: _Wrong place, my Champion…_

The Doctor sucked in a breath before returning to his TARDIS, he threw the leather jacket at the armchair as he leant on the brass console he pondered the words. The message was clearly from Time, she hadn't given him a message or a mission since his regeneration, he knew he was still her Champion, despite his fears prior to his regeneration it was still his duty. A surge of hope went through his body; _if the Gods are on our side then we may yet win this War!_

The Doctor actually smiled as he reset the controls, to his next destination.


	13. Chapter 11

**CHAPTER ELEVEN**

 **INFILTRATING THE FACTION**

Special Agent Serenadvorophrenaltid re-entered her chambers, the Doctor'd been right; it wasn't just knowledge of those rituals, it was about self control and attitude. They had such a cavalier attitude to the Laws of Time, as in they didn't even acknowledge that Time needed laws.

She ripped her bone mask free and threw it onto her bed; she'd just been forced to supervise an initiation ritual, her first over the course of her mission, in her six months there. All initiations were basically the same. Serena had read enough of the literature to know the essentials, whether you were dealing with Freemasons, black‐magic cults or the Chinese Red Army. They put you in a dark place, and they took away all traces of civilisation, all contact other people. They wore masks, or they vanished from sight, and they left you alone in the blackness with whatever gods they were trying to sell you. They stripped you down, took away all your psychological armour, your clothes and your friends and your dignity.

Then they tried to scare the living crap out of you. Usually by pretending to kill you, and this time Serena had to be the one to do the deed. Even now Serena couldn't do anything but relive what'd happened in the shrine...

They stabbed you in the heart with a rubber knife, or shot you in the head with blanks, or pumped you full of drugs and let you imagine yourself being eaten alive by the space pixies. They usually said it was symbolic, a ritual to make the initiate/victim feel as if he'd been born again. That was the polite way of putting it, anyway. On the other hand, it also left a neat little doorway straight into your brain, so anyone who wanted to brainwash you could slip in while you were distracted and vulnerable.

Serena also thought that it made the Mothers and Fathers of the Faction feel powerful.

A shiver ran through her, but the initiation hadn't quite gone the way she'd expected. It was all very well saying you didn't have anything to be scared of, that it was an illusion and you were in control. But when you were in a room built entirely out of skulls, looking at some poor kid bleeding out, your ears full of a buzzing noise that seemed to come from somewhere inside your own head, you were bound to sweat a bit. The Faction's people had vanished as soon as she'd brought the boy into the shrine, she was invisible, meant to observe the process, but for some reason she could still see their shadows, dancing in the light from the big black candles.

This is the place where the shadows are kept. When the Faction's people offend time to such a degree that their shadows leave them, this is the shrine where the silhouettes make new homes for themselves. The Faction probably kept its victims' shadows there, as well.

' _You are not of us,_ ' one of the shadows told her. It didn't have a voice of its own, it had spoken telepathically she realised. ' _Creativity is what makes the rituals work.'_

 _Am I hallucinating?_ she asked, sending her telepathic signal.

The shadow shrugged. Its hair was in curls, Serena saw, and they bobbed around its head when it moved.

' _People criticise the Faction's style, do you know that? They say it's childish. They say it's the work of sad little time_ _‐_ _wasters, trying to look all tough and scary. Oh, they're always ready to mock, these people. Then what do they do? They spend their lives hanging around with fluffy kittens and emotionally retarded schoolchildren. As if that's somehow morally superior to hanging around in bone yards. But I'm just a shadow, so what do I know?'_

 _What are you saying?_ A horrible sensation began in Serena's gut.

The shadow ignored the question. ' _You've made a mistake_ ,' it said. ' _You told yourself the spirits weren't real. You told yourself they couldn't touch you. You thought you were in control of the initiation, so you could keep an eye on the Faction from the inside. Isn't that right?_ '

That was when Serena had started to shake. The fear was coming, building up inside of her from her symbiotic nuclei to her twin hearts, a kind of fear that she'd never felt before, on her missions and certainly not on Gallifrey. She knew it wasn't real, but it didn't matter. The darkness was coming, and the shadows were moving aside for it, letting it into the shrine from its own realm of Paradox...


	14. Chapter 12

CHAPTER TWELVE THE JOURNEY INTO THE GREAT DESOLATION

The Doctor sipped from his mug of tea as he watched the TARDIS progress, the journey was faster than the previous time had passed this way.

He placed the mug on the Hand as it obediently moved closer, the casing thrummed with power, power he alone could control. He glanced up at the overhead infinity chamber.

The auditorium turned black for an instant and then was suddenly speckled with silver dots. A long misty white streak appeared across its centre; Mutter's Spiral.

The galaxy grew smaller and smaller until it had vanished completely, he was going far out, billions of light years, right to the very edge of the Universe, an area known as the Great Desolation. Shortly after the TARDIS finally landed on the fringes of his destination; the _Nameless City of the Archons._

The Doctor emerged from the TARDIS, moving a hand into his pocket he pulled out a telescope. The distant cityscape shifted into sharp focus: a vast metropolis of towering ebony-glass buildings razor-etched against the starless sky, each one outlined and traced with threads of gold. They were all tall and slender, triangular and pointed, some bent into odd, irregular angles. He couldn't see any windows. A human would have trouble taking the city in, just like when Hex's mind shattered when he looked at Weyland in his true form, but a Time Lord was made of sterner stuff.

He removed the telescope and began to head into the city, the angles, shapes and perspectives of the buildings were wrong and almost painful to look at, while the gold-trimmed black-glass pyramids reflected one another in endlessly dizzying iterations.

Directly ahead of him, in the centre of a vast square, was a towering gate: two massive black-glass pillars rising hundreds of metres into the dark sky supported a golden lintel that was easily two hundred metres across. _A Time Henge_ ; these ancient gates scattered across hundreds of worlds, including Earth. Millennia past, the Time Lords had rendered them inert and useless, but, once, they would have been used to transport people and goods between fixed places in space and time.

The Doctor walked for what seemed like miles until he reached the city centre: an impossibly tall windowless triangle of shimmering, gold-etched ebony glass.

The Doctor, his head held high walked straight into the structure, watched from behind...

Directly in front of him, a few metres away, a huge triangle was traced in gold on the floor, and at its centre was a gold-encircled pool of shimmering silver liquid.

Suddenly, long strings of metal streamed up towards the unseen roof and slowly, slowly, slowly a head appeared out of the silver. The Doctor gave a wry grin as the creature emerged.

"Hello again, it's me the Doctor," he stepped closer his eyes darkening. "Remember me?"

The stink of stagnant water and rotting fish filled his nostrils. The creature was wrapped in long, trailing rags, which concealed most of its flesh, but he caught hints of its true appearance as it floated up into the air. Outwardly it resembled an octopus, with twisting, writhing limbs.

"Once we were many, now I am all that remains, know this Time Lord, because of you I am all that remains of our race because of your act of _genocide!"_ the creature accused.

The Doctor squared his gaze, he hadn't thought of the Archon's as genocide, after all there'd only been seven of them.

An enormous milk-white eye at the centre of the grotesque being glared at the Time Lord, pure hatred radiating from the orifice. Beneath the eye, a beak – ringed with waving tentacles – opened and closed. The head dipped forward and the huge black pupil dilated until the Doctor felt he was looking into a bottomless pit.

"I've waited a long time for you.' The voice told him. "Since _they_ came..."

The Doctor smiled in victory as he took in the Archon's words.

"So the Enemy have been here?" the Doctor asked rhetorically, his eyes blazing he stepped forward, the Archon backed off. "What did they tell you about me?

"You are the 407th and the 409th Lord High President of Gallifrey, that you are Time's Champion," the Archon stuttered. "The traveller from beyond Time, the Destroyer of Worlds."

"Correct," the Doctor paced around the pool and the creature. "I am Time's Champion, and it's my responsibility to protect history. If you try to interfere in her flow, you'll suffer the consequences."

"You dare to lecture us on Time, We created TARDIS technology." The Archon claimed, its tome full of arrogance before the Time Lord, its hubris. "The TARDIS seeds were created by Archon science-mages."

"Really? Because I have seen the Old Time, the Time of Night and Chaos, I remember our early attempts to create TARDISes, your claims to have created TARDISes are fraudulent. Do you want to know what I remember of the Old Time?"

The Doctor gazed directly at the Archon.

"Stars dying, curling into molten fuel. Galaxies exploding in webs of dark matter. And fleets of Bowships riding the ion reefs. Long ago my people were artists, artists of _war._ They revelled in the beauty of the death of suns." The Doctor began to slowly advance on the Archon, an Oncoming Storm that the Archon was powerless to stop. "The Great Vampires, spawn of the Yssgaroth swarming across the entirety of the universe. The God of Ragnorok, of which I have fought all through Time, demanded tribute or they would end this universe. The Mi'en Kalarash trawled world after world, feeding on fear and despair. Fenric, Hastur the Unspeakable, unchained free to _shatter_ worlds. My people the Gallifreyans, literally _they that walk in shadows,_ we are the Shadow people, caught between the warm dark of magick and the cold light of science. Until Rassilon, Omega and the Other made us Time Lords. Funnily enough your empire is but a _footnote._ I am the Doctor I have defeated the Elder Gods, I bested Fenric three times, you should fear me!"

The Archon hovered over the pool, anger, hatred and indeed fear seemed to radiate from the creature.

"You may have once ruled a portion of the universe, but your time is done..." the Doctor gave an almost pitying glance as he turned to walk out of the room.

"Our time may have come Time Lord, but for you crimes I will take you with me, so that _they_ can excise your people unopposed."

Before the Doctor could respond a high pitched wine filled the air, the Archons danced to the music of the spheres, they could generate sounds that could render flesh from bone, resonant songs that could fell buildings. The Doctor gritted his teeth, blood swimming in his ear as he fell to the ground, the Doctor grinned, _just as he intended..._


	15. Third Interlude

**THIRD INTERLUDE**

 **THE TEMPORAL STORM**

 _The Doctor's TARDIS was sluggish as it left the area of the Vortex where the planet called Tsan had once been located. It had once been a thriving colony in the original drafts of history, only for the Daleks to invade and build an R &D factory there. _

_They had used it to develop a temporal dislocation weapon, by accelerating an object along it's timeline, for a TARDIS like the Doctor's it would force the ship forward through relative time, forced onwards, unable to go back. Poorer pilots would have been destroyed, but the Doctor was one of the finest pilots, it'd been difficult but he brought his ship back under control, he'd been forced through a century of the War though, a century he couldn't revisit, Time passed for Gallifrey._

 _Time had passed through the War, when the Doctor'd gone on leave from the frontlines the Time Lords were holding the line and were as best you could say winning, however a century under Rassilon's leadership the tides had turned. That abhorrence had run the War effort into the ground, the Time Lords were now loosing, N-Forms wiped out hundreds of worlds, only for the Daleks to rewrite history stopping the N-Forms, ultimately leading to Black Hole carriers going further back and destroying the solar system in its infancy, then the Daleks would intervene, and on and on, as each battle is fought and re-fought until time collapses under the strain, each of the battle sites sealed in an inaccessible timeline, sealed underneath a Time Lock; surrounded by a temporal penumbra which seals off the area forever, a scarred world, once each world looses strategic value the two civilisations move on. The War must be fought, the War must be Won!_

 _But the Doctor was a master strategist, a genius for War, an arch-manipulator, an anomaly, a man who could do anything; it was hard task to reach Tsan given how far it was behind enemy lines, but the Doctor had gotten through, locating the base he'd dug in. Planting Validium beneath the planets crust, seeding half a dozen N-Forms and setting an Omega device he'd been able to Time Loop the planet like the Time Lords once did to the Fendahl on planet 5. Only the Time Loop didn't hold for long, history convulsed, rifts formed and the planet reappeared, the Daleks tried to attack the Doctor, only for his N-Forms to tear their ships apart, of course when the Time Spiral formed around the planet all information about the world was erased from the universe, the Daleks garrison took a few moments to re-anchor themselves in the new history, long enough for the Doctor to summon a flotilla of War TARDISes and Bowships, caught by surprise the Dalek fleet was overwhelmed, their time travel capability crippled, easy pickings. The Planet bound Daleks had then tried to use their weapon only for the Validium to activate, the Planet burnt, the dimensional vents for the N-Forms broke down and the wave of destruction rippled into the past, their attempt to escape the Time Spiral failed, they were caught back in the loop, only they could only return to the loop as they escaped, their timeline collapsed under the weight, Tsan's entire history, everyone who ever lived there was forced into a singularity, for that world at least Death had Come to Time, another strand breaks..._

 _How much more could the Web take before it all came down..._

 _The Doctor didn't think anyone knew, they were all meddling with fire so dangerous that they were scorching eternity. The Doctor's worst fears had come true, the Old Time had come again, oh the enemies were different but the Laws of Physics were being repealed, the Daleks had tried to unleash Cacophony, the Time Lords had created the Nightmare Child in the image of the Elder Gods, the Horde of Travesties having turned on Daleks only moments after creation..._

 _Who knew what would be up someone's sleeve next. The Doctor had heard talk that Rassilon wanted to unleash the Neverwhere's from the Antiverse. He'd already stopped the Daleks attempt to release the Ferutu on Gallifrey in the aftermath of the Time War his seventh incarnation had fought against them, rendering their timeline impossible to exist._

 _The Doctor set the coordinates, he needed to find Compassion, start making plans, something flashed in his mind, he reset his destination, but kept manual control. The TARDIS would never make it out of Dalek held territory on automatic._

 _Carefully guiding the TARDIS in and out of the vortex, through nebulae, ion reefs he eventually reached the boarder of the Time Front, nearly there._

 _He seemed to be home-free, clear of Dalek territory when the attack came, it wasn't an attack in the conventional sense, he wasn't Time Rammed, exotic matter pulsars didn't rip into the TARDISes outer shell neither did one of the Horde of Travesties infect the TARDIS with its essence. It was an extrauniversal event, essentially the TARDIS ran into a solid wall, before the Doctor could do anything the wall collapsed and the storm behind it enveloped him._

 _Pure Vitreous Time, contaminations from other realities, he'd heard of it before, usually victims of this attack never survived._

 _The TARDIS was buffeted up and down, the cloister bell tolled; flames began to surge from the console, sparks rained from the ceiling, the whole room flashed a sickly green before the wave hit him._

 _Within seconds everything was burnt away, girders buckled, masonry crumbled, the remains of Adric's gold star melted, Ace's bomber jacket burnt to cinders._

 _The Doctor burnt alive; every nerve was on fire, every synapse burnt._

 _Then the side effects began to show, as the Doctor's outer skin solidified to black carbon scoring his insides began to change, his secondary heart was accelerated along his time stream, while his kidneys reverted to a primitive form, his body swiftly tried to compensate, reaching out to the TARDIS for help he found... he found nothing._

 _The Doctor screamed, this was hell; his body was being vegetated in some areas, aged to death in others,_ all at once.

 _The visions hit, all those could have beens, those alternate selves._

 _Then he felt the crystalisers begin to function, a part of the Doctor's mind realised what was going on, the Daleks had used the storm to break down the walls that protected his alternative selves, so that they could 'force' a version of history they wanted over his, to force him out of the Time War. He would fight them, he always would-_

 _The Doctor stood before the alter, Alistair at his side, as his bride to be was lead down the aisle, Ace was at his soon to be wife's side, Grace looked as beautiful as ever._

Must fight it...

 _The day passed by, the Doctor lay on the top of a hill, Grace beside him as he told her about planets he'd been to, the War he'd waged against the Elder Gods, how his time as Time's Champion was over and he wanted a quiet life._

Give in Doctor, I am a God, we are riddled through time, we will always win!

 _It was the voice of the Dalek emperor, Susan Mendez, it was still using her body._

 _The signal came from Gallifrey, a message from Romana, a war was about to start that could endanger all of reality._

 _He was the Doctor, he had no choice._

 _He said goodbye to Grace as Ace, Alistair and himself headed back into the heart of the battle, he couldn't have asked for two better people to watch his back..._

 _He was back in the console room, agony, his second heart had turned black, just like the outside of his body, cancers spread, then dreadfully something inside him clenched, he fell to the cracked and burnt floor. Another alternative flashed into his view._

 _Rassilon fell before him, after that abhorrence had killed Romana the Doctor'd seen red, just as When Ferain'd threatened Miranda the Doctor'd lashed out, Rassilon wasn't a fighter though, pretty soon the Doctor was standing over his broken and bruised body._

 _Rassilon gasped for help, the Doctor turned and picked up Rassilon's staser, the one he'd used to kill Romana._

 _The Doctor didn't blink, didn't look back, not once._

 _He assumed the mantle of President, pledged that he'd follow Romana's example and that once the War was one he'd rebuild the peace she'd worked hard for._

 _He led the might of the Time Lords against her enemies..._

No, not this one, find another

 _Still more vistas ripped through the Doctor's mind, every moment in his life was on fire._

Stop this!

 _He railed against the forces, as he reached under the console for the emergency dematerialisation safety._

I am the Doctor of the House of Lungbarrow, I walked through Eternity and Eternity _Weeps!_

There is no God in this Universe but ME!

 _The images began to fade as the Doctor fought back, every version of the Doctor fought in the War; it was inevitable he wouldn't just let anyone threaten the universe._

I am Time's Champion, I am the Ka Faraq Gatri, the Elder Gods fear me and I will not submit!

 _The TARDIS lurched free, racing away from the storm, a totally random flight path, the Doctor was unknowingly fulfilling history as the TARDIS materialised at the Villa Diodati to meet Mary Shelly, and his younger self._

 _He limped from the burnt out TARDIS to the house, the rain bounced off his hard burnt skin without sensation, second structure was paralysed and his nuclea lymbica symbiotica had been corrupted, no more regenerations, ever..._


	16. Chapter 13

**CHAPTER THIRTEEN**

 **UNWANTED RESCUE**

The Doctor awoke manacled to a wall, sturdy chains, held him fast. Rolling his eyes he flexed his wrists, there was far too much give to be considered secure, with moments his left wrist was free, his right following shortly afterwards. His then moved to start work on the manacles attached to his ankles, once he'd picked the lock with his penknife he stood up.

"Where is it..." the Doctor muttered as he fished in his pocket until he found the Chronon detector, if the Doctor's plan held the Archon would be contacting the Enemy right now. With luck they'd send someone to interrogate him, and in all likelihood said the Doctor could use that person to lead to him the Enemy.

The detector pinged, a timeship was arriving, the Doctor's face was impassive, he adjusted the display to tell what type of ship.

His blood ran cold.

The display had told him that the Timeship was a Type 94 battle TARDIS, a Time Lord then...

A renegade Time Lord, a traitor who joined the Enemy.

That complicated things, while battle TARDIS of that level were powerful they were quite different from the War TARDISes he'd seen being breed and the sentient type 103's curtsy of Compassion would even the odds still... Who would it be?

Who could betray the entire Web of Time?

The Doctor resolved to find out, he inched his way along the wall, slowly he moved through the corridors, his left hand outstretched while his right cradled the Chronon detector to his chest.

It didn't take the Doctor long to reach the hall overlooking the pool of liquid, he couldn't see the Archon, _probably meeting the traitor…_

The Doctor traced the signature to a non-descript door, the TARDIS had a functional chameleon circuit, the Doctor kept to the shadows.

He closed his eyes and stretched out his telepathic senses, he swiftly found the telepathic spore, it seemed strangely familiar, yet he hadn't felt it for a while. It was easy to follow whoever it was.

The Doctor followed the person as best he could, but whoever he was tracing was evidently good at covering their tracks.

The Doctor's eyes shot to an oddly arranged streetway, the non-Euclidean angles were clearly affecting whoever he was tracing, given the noise he'd just heard.

Keeping to the shadows the Doctor followed her down, it was a _her,_ he was sure of it; a flash of long dark hair, the size of the footprints: they may have been military treads but the footprints were quite clear.

Slowey and efficiently he moved, still in the shadows, closing the distance.

The Doctor was already trying to work out just who he was up against; the Rani was his first thought, not that she was the only dangerous female Time Lord, just that it fit her profile.

She'd long held contempt for other Time Lords and was always more interested with her stupid experiments than morality, or the Laws of Time.

She reminded him of the likes of Joseph Menegeler, even _Klein,_ the original Klein, disapproved of him, or people like him.

The woman entered the centre of the pyramid, she was by the pool, staying in the shadows the Doctor still couldn't get a decent view of her, just an outline, a tall, shapely he supposed woman. Tight utilitarian clothes, a bulky bag hung on her back.

She reached into her bag, pulling out what looked like a standard issue Gallifreyan scanner, didn't tell him anything.

She shook the scanner, clearly struggling with the environment, not necessarily unusual, very few Time Lords actually spent as much time dealing with things as old as this. Objects, people and weapons from the Old Time. She seemed to lock onto the reading for a different room.

As the Doctor followed her he realised quite quickly that she was trying to find _him,_ the way she was going was a little roundabout, clearly not trusting her own senses, opting to use the scanner, if the Doctor was quick he could get to the cell first, set an ambush.

Trusting his instincts the Doctor raced back to his cell, when he got there he glanced around the room, one entrance/exit, the manacles where he'd been chained immediately opposite, four bland featureless walls.

The Doctor had one chance, the odds suggested that she would be armed with some kind of directed energy weapon; the Doctor backed himself into the wall beside the door and waited.

It didn't take long; he soon heard footsteps, bracing himself ready to move he spied the business end of a standard issue CIA staser, the Doctor waited till the right moment, the staser was just into the room.

He yelled a kai, just as he kicked upwards with his right leg, the staser went flying, the Doctor ducked to the side, avoiding a punch, before he launched himself forwards, and made a series of fast, fast strikes. Vertical to the head with the blade of the hand, covered by a feint with the other hand.

His opponent was holding her own, _just,_ he moved forward holding her left arm up he swiftly used his right to press an attack, as she doubled over he caught his legs underneath hers and shifted his body weight, causing her to fall to the ground.

The Doctor saw the staser and made an attempt to reach it, he heard the woman get back up, wasting no time he raised the staser to see…

"Ace..." the Doctor lowered the weapon as Ace dropped from her stance.

"Alright professor?" Ace gave him a thin smile. "So I take it this rescue was a little unnecessary?"

"Rescue..." the Doctor questioned as he handed the staser back to her. "Romana sent you..."

"No, Narvin did," Ace looked around the cell. "Locked my TARDIS onto yours, followed your trail."

The Doctor nodded.

"I thought you were a traitor, working for the Enemy..." the Doctor told her, by way of an explanation.

"I'd gathered, either that or you've gone psychotic," Ace smiled again, this time a bit brighter. "Figured it was your turn this time."

The Doctor gave a small laugh before advancing on Ace and pulling her in for a hug, one she gratefully responded to.

"Professor, it's been ages since you came for a visit, it's not like you can't just check with Romana or Narvin to find out when I'm not on a mission," Ace accused, her smile youthful as ever, her eyes markedly older than he'd last seen them, just like Leela due to her time on Gallifrey her ageing slowed, however because Ace'd graduated from the Prydon academy on Gallifrey and was official a 'Time Lady' she had been bonded with a symbiotic nuclei, they couldn't give her regenerations, but they gave her an impressive longevity.

"You know I don't like going home, they'll try to make me President again!" the Doctor complained. "I'm Time's Champion, it's not like I don't have a lot on my plate already."

"Okay, I get that, I've seen the student cults devoted to you," Ace told him, grinning at the sheer horror evident on his gaze.

"St... _student cults_?"

"Yep," Ace nodded, before her expression hardened, business mode. "So what's here, the Matrix data called this the Nameless City, but nothing beyond that."

Just as the Doctor opened his mouth to reply she continued.

"No hang on a minute let me guess, a _frrright_ from before the dawn of time..." Ace teased, giving a passable imitation of the Doctor's previous incarnation.

"Close, the Archons are one of the lesser Elder Gods, from the Old Time, they used to rule a good portion of this Galaxy, until they were defeated around 3.5 billion BC," the Doctor told her glancing at his adopted daughter.

"The same time Rassilon came to power," Ace surmised, trying to ignore the Doctor's encouraging smile.

"Exactly, the Archon's were defeated shortly after the Eternal Wars, or during, people aren't quite sure," the Doctor began to walk from the cell. "I came here before in my second incarnation, the Master had tried to make a deal with them to rule the universe together. I kind of committed genocide, if you call the deaths of six or seven beings genocide that is..."

The Doctor's easy tone belied the regret in his eyes, things must have been serious for him to use such an extreme sanction, Ace placed her hands on the Doctor's shoulder in a gesture of support.

The Doctor smiled in thanks, as he turned to the door.

"We need to find that Archon, it may know who or what the Enemy is, I need that information," the Doctor strode out of the cell Ace behind him.

It didn't take the two of them long to locate the communications panel, Ace covered the Doctor as he spliced her scanner into the systems.

"So, what is it now? Ace or Dorotheé?" the Doctor asked as he worked on decrypting the signal.

"Now, you're asking now?" Ace asked, as she tried to keep all of the strange non-Euclidean and otherworldly angles and corridors in her point of view.

"Sorry, force of habit..." the Doctor trailed off frowning as he broke the firewall. "Well, that was entirely pointless."

"It's a simple relay tight beam transmitter," He continued at Ace's questioning glance. "Nothing we can use here."

"So, bust?" Ace asked, before elaborating. "When I was in my TARDIS I made continuous scans, even in stealth mode, couldn't see anything or anyone other than you."

"That could be bad..." at Ace's questioning look the Doctor elaborated further. "They may have seen through your TARDIS' stealth mode."

The Doctor stood as he removed the scanner.

"That Archon, it may have seen something," the Doctor eyed the scanner. "Ace, I'll need you to back me up, I'm going to interrogate that Archon."


	17. Chapter 14

**CHAPTER FOURTEEN**

 **GOING NATIVE**

Serenadvorophrenaltid, otherwise known as Mother Lanar of the Faction Paradox stood over the kid, the knife poised in her hands, a nasty cut dripping blood from the boy's throat. Serena sneered, she'd been with the Faction for ten years, she remembered each time she'd stood over someone like this, at first it was just for initiations, no real danger as her old self reasoned. Her old, weak self.

"You crossed the Faction, we told you that if you bought from us you'd have to give us a cut, otherwise you'd be finished," Serena told him, bringing the knife up, flakes of skin and gristle dangled from the blade. "You ignored us."

Serena didn't blink as she stabbed the boy in the gut, waiting a second she twisted the blade, the sneer never leaving her face as the kid fell to the ground.

Serena didn't look back as she returned to the Faction's base, they'd gone up market since she'd been here, at first she'd believed in her mission, the Laws of Time, Gallifrey, but the shadows had shown her another way, she'd lost hers, just like the rest of the Faction, she lacked a shadow.

The legends said that when the first members of the Faction left Gallifrey their shadows were stolen, and that the universe itself skipped a beat.

Serena smiled as she saw one of the Faction's Little Brother's come over, a tall upright native, she couldn't remember his name, but he was her _first._ She remembered standing over him as she initiated him into the Faction, they were linked, Serena knew that the loa spoke through him, it was nearly time...

"Mother Lanar," he spoke in greeting, all of the Faction here knew he was her favourite, ever since she'd shown him the Frame, their Paradox Machine.

Serena favoured him with a look she'd never understood before coming here, the look a lion gave to a zebra, the look a Vampire always gave blood in the media across the universe, a look that meant just one thing, _'you are my prey...'_

As he reached her she moved her hands to caress the bone mask, each one perfect, each one a symbol of death, the inescapable end of all things regardless of the Time Lords gifts.

She stepped closer and pulled the Little Brother in for a long lingering kiss, her tongue probed into his mouth, domineering, taking control.

Just for a second she let go allowed herself to think of _before,_ she remembered how she invited him to her rooms to discuss his initiation, terrified that he'd heard what she was, _a spy..._

She remembered how it'd devolved into something else, how they'd fallen into the bed together, a primitive urge that should've been suppressed, how the rituals had felt _wrong,_ rebellious, illicit and so, so _arousing._

At first it felt strange, she felt ecstasy, she smiled, but it didn't last, he wasn't Gallifreyan, he couldn't keep up. She remembered felling like a machine, going through moves, again, again and again.

Slowly the environment, the bed and the native had lost focus to her, she felt herself falling, she found herself in a realm of nothingness, a distant horizon beckoning, time's distant horizon.

She'd tried to resist it of course, the loa pulled her in faster and faster, the more she fought the faster she fell...

As she got closer she felt more and more lost until... until she reached the other side...

Screams filled her ears, people in pain, being tortured, she looked to the side, a human, or at least humanoid was on a rack. He was being stretched further than anybody could stand, at the same time a red hot symbol was being pressed onto his chest.

On the other side, an insect, its shell resonating, small amounts of acid poured into the cracked, she couldn't resist the pull, no matter how much she wanted to free the human, to help the insect break free, she _couldn't._

The pull began to give way when after what seemed like hours of people in pain, hours of seeing tortures worse than she could imagine she arrived before _her._

The figure Serena existed before was smooth and white as porcelain, but was forged of something far more durable. Even before Death had come to life, _she_ had existed, as essential and intolerable as her younger sister.

" _Pain,"_ Serena breathed in fear and awe.

It wasn't often you meet your Gods, and long ago on Gallifrey there'd been six Gods; Pain, Death, Time, Light, Life and Eternity. Although time had long passed the Gods still held sway, choosing their Champions, for Time the Doctor stood as her Champion. Death herself had taken the Master as her Champion.

Serena felt weak, everything she'd seen it all seemed irrelevant, nothing she could say, nothing she could do, this was _it._

" _I have brought you here,"_ crooned Pain, her voice sent shivers down Serena's body. " _So that you could full fill your destiny..."_

Serena remembered as she listened to the God, Pain had such magnificent plans for the universe, plans her comrades would never approve, plans that would bring the wrath of Time's Champion down upon them.

Pain told Serena of the conflict to come, how even Death would be meaningless, how people would die only to be rewritten and called into being once more, to live and die again and again, over and over, in a word _Hell._

How they'd suffer for eternity, with no relief, _ever._

Serena at first wanted to fight, but one look from Pain silenced that plan, _she_ was a God, what hope would Serena have, any plots, schemes, any fighting would be pointless, and she couldn't even run.

" _Why run, I offer you a chance for power, control the Faction, Dronid, time itself,"_ Pain smiled trying to be seductive. " _No more running, no more fighting, just power..."_

Despite herself Serena found herself responding.

"What must I do?"

" _Serve the Faction, loyally, I will cover for you with the Time Lords, and when the time comes,"_ Pain smiled. " _What Time's Champion arrives you shall bring him pain, and feed the storm that is coming, for my ascension..."_

Then she found herself back in the present, as she allowed the Little Brother's tongue into her mouth she bit, _hard._

As she drew blood her hand reached back and pulled a set of hairs from the cultists head, she drew back, taking in the poor man's shock as she walked into the Shrine, the appropriate biomass in her hands and mouth, ready to begin, she was _Pain's Champion_ , and she would begin the conflict that would see the universe delivered into her Goddess' hands...


	18. Chapter 15

**CHAPTER FIFTEEN**

 **AN 'ACE' UP HIS SLEEVE**

Relocating the Archon was relatively easy; to be fair it would be quite hard to hide the massive bulk of the creature, or it's stench...

The Archon was at the doors to the Doctor's TARDIS, evidently trying to decode the cipher indet coding implanted directly into the outer chronoplasmic shell, trying to get in. The Doctor and Ace watched on until the alien gave up and began the journey back into the city.

"So Professor, what's the plan?" Ace asked looking around the city, her unease clear in her eyes.

"A work in progress..." the Doctor trailed off in though, before suddenly jerking to look Ace in the eye, his gaze unblinking.

Ace was taken aback by his eerie gaze, at first she'd had difficulty taking in how her old professor had turned into the far younger man dressed as Lord Byron-, sorry, Wild Bill Hickock as he'd corrected her. But one look into those eyes, those ancient changing eyes full of intelligence and wisdom, compassion yet at the same time something calculating and manipulative, the eyes were the same, the exact same gaze that she had come to hate in parts, how it always made it feel she knew nothing, how he knew far more than she could ever hope to know.

"What?" Ace backed up slightly unnerved by his gaze.

"You don't happen to be carrying any nitro-9 in that rucksack?" the Doctor asked, his hand outstretched.

"Yeah, couple of cans," Ace replied, in days past she'd already be reaching for them.

"We'll follow the Archon back to his destination, use the first one to get me in, and have the second prepared for my signal," the Doctor began to walk away as soon as the last syllable left his mouth, Ace blinked before she followed.

She knew she couldn't get him to tell her his plan, from what she'd seen of the Time Lords on Gallifrey when they regenerated only their surface characteristics changed, their core characteristics remained constant. Ace reckoned it was like a conic section, the same object just cut from different point of view to give a slightly different shape in two dimensions of the three dimensional object, just as the Doctor's body, regardless of its appearance was just the tip of a being that was connected to the very fabric of reality by a umbilical cord of block-transfer-equations. A bond she now shared, partially.

She followed the Doctor in silence, the two of them were once more in the shadows, what was it he'd once said was, ' _Gallifrey translates literally as they who walk in shadows,'_ was he determined to take everything literally?

Eventually they reached the communications panel once more, the Archon squat before the device; its writhing limbs operated the controls. A strange melodic sound filled the room, apparently it's typical form of speech, Ace surmised.

"If you're wondering why neither of our TARDISes are translating its very simple," the Doctor suddenly said, Ace hated when he seemed to know what she was thinking. "The Time Lords never added the languages of the Old Time to the Matrix, those are stored only in the archive banks."

"Destroyed in the civil war..." Ace pointed out, remembering what she heard about the Pandora whilst setting up a trap on Earth with UNIT for a certain renegade Time Lord.

"Alright then, only in my mind," the Doctor absent mindedly murmured.

"Have you ever thought about teaching at the Academy, you know more about the Old Time than most of the lecturers," Ace told him as she pulled a can of nitro-9 from her bag.

"I stick to literal truths, not Rassilon's propaganda," the Doctor said as he slipped the nitro-9 into his own hand, his other pointed to a strange angle, at first Ace though it was obtuse, however when she tilted her head it seemed to be acute, and when she looked another way it seemed to be larger than 180 degrees.

"Ace, Ace!" the Doctor sharply pulled Ace's face away, her stare broken. "Ace listen to me, don't focus on the angles, they're all non-Euclidean, even with your symbiotic nuclei your brain isn't equipped to handle how the Archon's build things, they're elder beings from another dimension, they don't fully consign to our laws of physics."

Ace nodded.

"I need you to go over to that side of the room, _carefully,_ and place the other can of nitro-9 underneath that angle, it's a nexus point holding some of the structure together, I want you to bring some of the roof down when I give you the signal," the Doctor started to head down, before he could move far Ace took hold of his arm and wrenched him back.

"You want me to bring the ceiling down on us?" Ace half asked, half accused.

"No, just on the communications device, we'll be fine," the Doctor smiled disarmingly, before affectionately tweaking her nose. "Trust me."

This time he was gone before she could react.

" _His just as bad as the little Scottish one,"_ Ace grumbled as she moved to follow his orders.

Ace watched the Doctor as he stalked forth from the shadows, something predatory in his eyes, a look she'd seen often in 'her' Doctor when faced with an opponent.

"Not going well is it..." the Doctor called mockingly as he stood behind the Archon, the creature reared back in shock. "Yeah, there's a saying on Gallifrey; ' _The Doctor can do anything and escape from anywhere,'_ bit of an exaggeration of course."

"What do you want Time Lord?" the Archon's deep voice boomed, somehow less impressive compared to the Doctor's tone.

"Is that tone supposed to frighten me?" the Doctor's voice seemed to drop a dozen octaves. "What do you think I want, my people are facing an Enemy, an Enemy that is completely unknown."

"And you suspect us?" the Archon crackled.

"No, although I must say they did a good job repairing your city, I remember it being more, how shall I say, destroyed when I left," the Doctor smiled. "What promises did they make you?"

"That they would make your species pay for what, you've done to us, for what they've done to countless others!" the Archon shrieked with pleasure, scintillating at the thought that the Time Lords would be destroyed.

"So it's someone we've already tried to deal with," the Doctor surmised, the Archon seemed shocked, the Doctor grinned. "I can surmise what happened; they heard your claims of having built the TARDIS seeds. Pretty soon they discovered that while those claims were fraudulent you still possessed a great deal of time technology and knowledge. So I ask again what did you gain from their alliance?"

"Their thoughts just-" the Archon started.

"So they didn't come to you directly, they just beamed their thoughts into your head, interesting," the Doctor took a tentative step forward. "Have you ever played poker, I always keep an _Ace_ up my sleeve."

Ace took that as her queue, she pulled the top of the nitro-9 can and legged it from the strange angle, ten seconds later the explosion ripped through the structural beams. Acrid smoke filled the room, rubble fell downwards as Ace flung herself clear, she briefly saw the Archon fall forwards, right towards the Doctor.

The twisting writhing form of the Archon fell forwards, its limbs twitching. The Doctor took hold of the central body of the creature and propelled it to the floor, his right hand was poised, two fingers ready as he opened his telepathic senses.

"You... you can't..." the creature cried out as the Doctor ripped through its remaining telepathic defences.

"Oh I _can..."_ the Doctor's voice seemed to drop several octaves, his tone caused Ace's blood to run cold, her worst fear was the Doctor to turn evil and when he spoke like that...

"Contact..." the Doctor murmured, back in his normal voice.

"No..." the Archon wheezed, its twitching intensified as it cried out in pain.

" _Contact..."_ that tone again, the tone she immediately associated with the Daleks name for him; _the Bringer of Darkness._

She watched for minutes as the Doctor simply read everything he could find in the Archon's mind, she felt more than a pang of sympathy for the creature, from what she'd heard what the Doctor was doing wasn't exactly painless.

After a few minutes the Doctor broke off, the Archon fell to the floor, quivering in pain whilst mumbling incoherently.

The Doctor turned to Ace his expression grave.

"It didn't know, as it said they just beamed their thoughts into its head," the Doctor sighed, all the darkness faded from his face. "It was half dead when they stated, the only survivor."

The Doctor and Ace stood together in relative silence, punctuated only by the Archon's whimpers.

He eventually turned to look at her.

"Your TARDIS," he said before walking off, his hands in his pockets, his head bowed low.

Ace spared the Archon another glance before following her old mentor.


	19. Chapter 16

**CHAPTER SIXTEEN**

 **THE LIBRARY OF THE OLD TIME**

They both entered Ace's TARDIS in silence, the Doctor spared the console room a glance, Ace'd styled it off of the Doctor's as it'd been during her later travels, and indeed how his appeared now, with a few touches of her own of course.

"This is insulting," the Doctor grumbled.

"What is?" Ace asked as she pulled the lever to shut the TARDIS doors.

The Doctor turned to look at her.

"This is the same TARDIS they lent me to deal with Klein, I begged Romana to keep it as a secondary TARDIS, but she wouldn't let me," the Doctor seemed about to pout, before sighing once more.

Ace watched as he leant on the console, every century of his age clear in his gaze.

" _Not now, I need more time..."_ the Doctor seemed older and more morose than she'd ever seen him before, in this or his other face.

Ace felt like she should say something, but whatever she could think of didn't seem enough to cover the depth of his expression, then all of a sudden he looked up at her and smiled.

"Ace, I need you to head back to Gallifrey-" the Doctor started.

"Hang on Professor, Narvin ordered-" Ace started to object.

" _Ace,"_ the Doctor's tone seemed harder, as if he was preparing for something. "I need you to report to President Romana, the Enemy; they're not Osirans, Constructors, Karnas'koi or the Archons."

"We already knew that," Ace countered her tone unsure.

"No, we only suspected, now we know for sure," the Doctor turned to face her, the expression on his face one Ace'd seen countless times before.

"You know something," Ace told the Doctor. "I know you _Doctor,_ just like your past self, you know something and you're not tellingus, Romana, Narvin, your _own people_ about something in this War we're about to face because it'd interfere with your plan."

"That's not it," he huffed and tried to walk away from her.

Ace didn't take that as an answer; she took hold of his arm and pulled hard, twisting him around, she looked him right in the eye.

"What do you know?" Ace asked.

"I'm a dead man walking," the Doctor replied, honesty shining in his eyes.

"What..."

"Back, only three years after I regenerated into this form, _Prydon's savers,_ was it really that long ago..." the Doctor sighed absent mindedly. "Anyway, I arrived in the East Indies ReVit zone, I'd slipped through a crack in the Web of Time, there was an auction, for a 'weapon' from the War, representatives of the Time Lords, the Faction and the Enemy were invited. The Time Lord was from fifty years after the start of the War. Eventually I found out that the true nature of the weapon was; me..."

"You?" Ace was confused.

"My dead body, apparently I died during the first battle at Dronid, my body was buried in the ruins. My biodata by then- by now has been inlaid with hundreds of codes, kinks and assorted features, including but not limited to the full powers of the Presidency and links to the Elder Gods, in fact my own corpse was so telepathically active that it could interface with the minds of people there even deceased." The Doctor told her a matter of fact tone distancing himself from the implications. "The second that battle starts I will die."

He stepped passed her and leant on the console.

"The Enemy has some means to control the Ancestor Cells; the things that originated life throughout the universe, energised by Vortex energies, into something totally inimical to Time Lord life," the Doctor continued. "They have high level Time technology to rival our own, and their staging areas seemed to be based entirely outside of Gallifrey's noosphere."

The two of them stood in silence, Ace of course knew that the Time Lord's noosphere, their area of absolute power and understanding extended from the Old Time forward to a few billion years into the future, a few of them after Earth's destruction. In fact TARDISes wouldn't even enter Kasterborous after a certain date.

"There've been prophecies about the coming of the War for millions of years, the opponent always listed as 'The Enemy'. During my last incarnation I though it meant the Great Old Ones, when they became active again, but I was wrong," the Doctor turned to look at her. "I need you to get something for me."

"It better not involve betraying Romana," Ace told him, hopeful at least that he had some kind of plan.

"No, I just need a set of Matrix codes," the Doctor started to pat down his coat and trousers before finding a UNIT pad and pen, he scribbled down the sets of coding before passing it to Ace.

Ace took a moment to decipher his handwriting, still unchanged from his previous body.

"The Land of Fiction block transfer codes?" Ace asked looking up.

The Doctor nodded as he established a link with Ace's TARDIS, reaffirming his brief stint as its pilot, a short hop.

"Exactly, the Land of Fiction was created by the Gods of Ragnorok, only they pretty soon lost interest, a short while ago Romana had the Land added as an annex to the Matrix," the Doctor looked up at her. "When the Celesties erased themselves from history and made themselves into conceptual entities they built their home of Mictlan using the Matrix, I gained access once. I have the source codes, I just need those codes to complete my access to their realm."

"Okay, where are you taking us?" Ace asked as she stretched out her own, still developing bond to the TARDIS, she could 'see' the Doctor's telepathic signature, the being that was held beneath the physical form, the true essence of a Time Lord, Ace could also sense the three bonds the Doctor shared, the weakest with her TARDIS, a far stronger one with his own TARDIS, then strongest of the three the one that went far deeper, directly to the Hand of Omega.

"Back to my TARDIS, then while you go back to Gallifrey I have one more stop to make," he smiled once more before heading to the doors, just before he exited her TARDIS he turned to regard her and opened her jacket and began to rummage in her pockets.

"What are you doing?" Ace said as she tried to bat his hands away before she heard the audible 'aha'.

The Doctor grinned as he took out her sunglasses.

"Don't mind if I borrow them do you?" the Doctor said. "No didn't think so, bye!"

With that remark he was gone, Ace stood blinking a few moments.

" _Definitely prefer dark and brooding to that,"_ Ace muttered as she set course for Gallifrey.

* * *

The Doctor turned and watched as Ace's TARDIS dematerialised, he stood there watching thin air before he headed over to the control console. He eyed the controls before looking to the Hand, he needed precision piloting, even at its best the controls the Doctor'd constructed couldn't reach that level of finesse, he could only manage it with the Hand.

Reaching out through the Hand of Omega's controls the Doctor directly locked out the TARDIS matrices, there could be no error in this journey and massive sections of the TARDIS greyprints were damaged, essentially the blueprint it used for regeneration circuits, without them operating things constantly went wrong.

Once he had control he turned the TARDISes path, away from the city, he overtook Ace's TARDIS by a massive margin, as soon as he was clear of the Great Desolation he began to slow, this had to be done with care.

Millions, billions of years ago the universe was vastly different science and magic both reined, back in the Old Time forces could use either power, and the Gallifreyans were those who walked in shadows between the cold light of science and the warm dark of magick. That was until Rassilon and the Other instructed the masses on Gallifrey to caste out their irrational states when the Eye of Harmony was anchored to create the web of Time, as a result magic was banished from the universe. Except traces lingered, ley lines of power where spread throughout the universe, and at points where these lines met the Time Lords built the Nexuses.

The Nexuses were built at the points the ley lines meet as a form of 'early warning system' in case of a return of the irrational, the Yssgaroth, the Old Ones and many of the other horrors from that time. They were built into many bodies throughout the universe; many were built into moons and mountain ranges, receivers that capped massive powers. If breached by accident they could cause the myriad threads of alternate universes to spill forth into our own, the last time the Doctor's encountered one on Minas, one of Saturn's moons, he'd accidently triggered it, not something any Time Lord should do, but then the Doctor was special.

The Doctor put the TARDIS into maximum stealth mode and materialised a few miles away from the nexus on Earth, the Nexus built to keep the library secure.

The Doctor shed his leather jacket, placed Ace's sunglasses on his nose as he left the TARDIS, the oxygen immediately hit him, the air had about 23% volume oxygen, over 115% of it in the 21st century. This was Earth, during the late Permian era, about 250 million years BC.

The Doctor began the long trek, in the vast landscape before him stretched a massive nameless mountain range; the Doctor loosened his cravat and undid his top button. Sunglasses firmly on he began to climb up the steep incline, sand wafted behind him, clinging to his boots and trousers.

The climb took hours before the Doctor reached the cave, embedded at the top of the structure was the entrance.

Swiftly entering the closed library the Doctor stretched forth, he swiftly interfaced with the security systems, ancient defences against the Charon and the Great Vampires flared on, his nerves singed, then it let him through.

The Doctor had been able to add his biodata to the security systems, something very few people could do.

All remained quiet in the hushed vaults of the library. The carpet was thick and soft to absorb every footfall, every movement that might disturb the reverent atmosphere. The Doctor moved through the ancient edifice, silent as a cat, sticking to the shadows of the towering shelves and statues.

The Doctor's search was short lived, he swiftly found a data terminal, a point of access. The Doctor pushed the eye board to the side and looked into the retina scanner.

The Library was forbidden, no one could know he was here, the Library of the Old Time had been built here by the Disciples of the Other; the very first agents of the CIA fleeing Rassilon's purges, seeking to preserve the true history of the Old Time.

The Doctor manually searched the records, thousands of images flashed through his mind's eye; Yssgaroth symbols, Elder God cults, images of the Hoothi spheres, descriptions of the Guardians and the prophecies of the Pythia. Eventually the Doctor found what he was looking for, he'd read it before. It was bound in reptile hide of some kind, with an omniscate embossed on the cover.

The Doctor located the book on the mainframe, once he had the physical location he took off, running.

He passed thousands of records, relics from the Time Wars, control circuits from Bowships, piece of an Osirian Flesh Loom, even a fragment of the crystal of Kronos.

When he reached the book stored in its stasis field, the Doctor licked his suddenly dry lips, the last time he'd seen it he hadn't had the time to appreciate it.

The Doctor smiled to see the volume sag and settle once returned to Pangea's gravity. He lifted the heavy cover, turned the pages. They whispered secrets as they passed his fingertips, and he knew he must be swift and careful, the longer he stayed the more likely he could be noticed.

He remained there for hours, digesting as much of the works as possible, the collection of prophecies, _not this time..._

He swallowed, they were all interesting, all featured events to come, not with any form of specifics of course.

The Pythia liked to be vague about their descriptions; it left the ancient Gallifreyans dependant on them.

The Doctor replaced the book and rubbed his face with his hands.

"I've waited too long,"

Without pause he stepped forth and headed from the depths of the Library, as soon as he left the confines of the Library he felt his skin crawl, he was being watched.

The Doctor didn't know what to expect, this era was full of predators, he could be facing anything.

The Doctor looked up over the ridge to see… _her…_

Her vast black robes fluttered in the breeze, sand swirled around her but never attached to her, deep red hair cascaded from behind her hood, the Doctor was uncomfortably reminded of Madame Clacice Beauvier. But underneath was the worst vision, a skull, not gleaming but darkened, grey covered in streaks, the eyes were deep pits, flicks of gristle and tendons hung on the edge. The glowering red of her eyes turned to face him, every movement caused flecks of skin to fall to the ground. It was her; _Death…_


	20. Fourth Interlude

**FOURTH INTERLUDE**

 **LOST TIME**

 _The TARDIS spun out of control, the relative dimensional stabilisers shrieked in protest, the Cloister Bell tolled, telepathic screams of agony filled his mind. The Doctor focused his mind, his fingers splayed across the controls, he reached past the physical interface and grappled with the thin stream of power originating from the reactors. He aligned the engines to counter the energy wave that had interacted with the TARDIS' timestream, a name filtered into his consciousness;_ Temporal Dislocation, _he'd read research papers about it when he served on the High Council,_ he'd _written some himself. The energy wave was trying to force him further alone his timestream, in an attempt to age him to death._

 _It took the Doctor hours of frantic modification but he was finally able to bring the TARDIS to a halt._

 _In the void between Galaxies Space-Time ruptured and seized as the dimensions where bent in ways that shouldn't be possible, a flash of light brighter than three Supernovae coalesced, a shockwave of energy burst outwards, a slurry of extradimensional radiation and chronon energy, all carried along an expanding tachyon wave at superluminal velocities._

 _At the centre of the blast a single blue structure tumbled into existence, the TARDIS had arrived._

 _Inside the control room of the Time-Capsule the Doctor picked himself up and dusted the layers of ash off of his suit, the scowl that had become permanently affixed to him seemed even sharper. That attack, in order to survive it he'd had to jump through three different realities, and now here he was._

 _It took a few seconds for the Navigation Computer to fully boot up, when it did he calculated a trip to Installation 000008; the Black Hole Shipyards, where the Doctor had made his forward Command Post._

 _He pressed the controls only for the TARDIS to groan and refuse passage, as his scowl deepened the Doctor tried several variations, a number of the Clone Worlds, a few isolated Military Outposts he'd set up with Romana's support, behind the Council's back. It was only after a few hours of failure the Doctor returned to the Navigation screen to take in the Relative Date._

 _He double taked, according to the readings he'd been thrown forwards into the future by a hundred years, and he couldn't go back. The Laws of Time were quite clear on this front, travel through relative time was forbidden._

 _All thoughts of vacation left his mind, complex strategic calculations took its place, based on the positions of the Dalek and Time Lord positions, following the frankly speaking disastrous battles at the_ Tyrene Nebula _and the fall of the Cruciform basically crippled the Time Lord Military, not that it hadn't done a number on the Daleks._

 _Leave was out of the question, Rassilon; the raging egomaniac that he was would go after any potential political threats, including the core of experienced officers the Doctor had elevated to Command the Time Lord Military, most likely Rassilon would have made them_ disappear, _and then replaced the Doctor's people with his Political Commissars. The Doctor was reminded of the rise of Nazism on Earth..._

 _His musing was interrupted when the Long Range sensors on the TARDIS detected three Dalek Light Attack Saucers approaching his position. The Doctor took stock of his situation, shields where only charging to 35%, but the stealth systems where 50% effective – even at 100% the stealth capabilities of his admittedly heavily refitted TARDIS where not guaranteed to be effective when there were sizeable 'distractions' and the Doctor was in the middle of empty space, literally nothing around other than molecular dust for millions of Light Years, he stuck out like a sore thumb._

 _The Doctor swiftly worked, he shut down all but necessary systems; shut off the main Space-Time drives, and shut down nearly everything else, charged the shield generators and activated the stealth generator. Moving swiftly he found the cylindrical pod of a_ Space-Time Beacon, _nigh on indestructible, he was quickly able to modify the beacon to send out the power signature of a Type 40 TARDIS before jettisoning the device into space._

 _Only minutes later the trio of Dalek ships came out of the Vortex just under four light minutes from the beacon, moving slowly the Doctor manoeuvred the TARDIS into position. With less than a bat of his eyes he entered the hidden commands that opened up the TARDIS' primary weapons array. The outer TARDIS wall became translucent and the Dalek ships lit up, targeting data surrounded them, all gained from the passive sensors, he couldn't afford to use the active ones yet so the information he could gather was limited without access to the sensors of a Nexus or launching sensor drones, all of a sudden there was a large grinding noise as a dull brass lever sprang up from the console, concentric rings formed around the lever; a targeting lure._

 _Now he only had to wait..._

 _It wasn't a long wait, the Daleks blasted their active sensors, they'd see through the beacon in a second._

 _The Doctor decloaked his TARDIS and rammed the sublights as he locked the Weapons on target and fired._

 _From space the TARDIS suddenly appeared before surging forward as a blur, a golden white blast of energy from the TARDIS Artron canon, the brilliant blast impacted the first saucer's shields dead on the centre and less than a second later they buckled the ship was instantly vaporised; the TARDIS' weapons had the capability to destroy planets, with a slight rotation the beam clipped the second saucer destroying it too. However the third was able to move out of the beams path before firing off a salvo of Null Space torpedoes, each on at .99C, but it didn't matter, the TARDIS had already slammed into the side of the Dalek ship at the same speed, the Higgs Field compensators already set so that the TARDIS was given the theoretical mass of an Earth sized planet. The kinetic energy alone was enormous, let alone the energy produced as the shields interacted, then a second later the two snapped apart, the TARDIS shields down to 15%, the Dalek's had collapsed though, one of the torpedoes struck the TARDIS._

 _The console room shook and sparks fell from the console as the shields fell to 5%; Null Space Warheads worked by converting Virtual Particles that came into existence for a few microseconds across empty space, by consolidating those particles to harness what the humans termed 'Vacuum Energy' they could release a massive portion of energy into regular Space-Time in the matter of a picoseconds, even one could destroy an Earth sized planet, but the TARDIS shields where sterner stuff, having held the massive energy the Doctor boosted the ECM and fired the TARDIS weapons on one last burst._

 _With the Dalek fleet little more than a floating miasma of atoms the Doctor picked up the Beacon and headed out using the Randomiser._

 _The TARDIS headed out through dozens of planets and times as the TARDIS self repaired; meanwhile the Doctor had built a new apparatus using the Beacon and several cannibalised parts of technology that even people on Gallifrey would have difficulty understanding, it was never his intelligence that made the Doctor special, well it was, but it was his boundless creativity. Shortly he had completed the device that would allow him to trace the origin of the Dalek Pulse._

 _He slowly retook control of the TARDIS and scouted the vicinity of the vortex, what he found deeply troubled him; the wreckage of several TARISes, several of the sentient variety. It only took a short while to bring one of them aboard, a short while later he found that her cognitive functions where completely destroyed, but he was able to upload the last readings of its sensors before the Dalek pulse destroyed it, a quick comparison confirmed that the same weapon they'd tried to use on him, once he'd found the origin point for the blast he jettisoned the device he'd built into the Vortex._

 _Within moments he'd shut down everything in the TARDIS and activated Stealth Mode, as the device triggered a wormhole opened to the space time location of the pulse._

 _Without power the TARDIS simply drifted into the portal and out of the other side. The Wormhole lasted less than a minute; the TARDIS was behind Dalek lines._

 _If the Doctor fired up active sensors every Dalek ship in the system would 'ping' him in under a second, but the passive sensors told him all he needed to know... Around him where more than three thousand Dalek_ Command Carrier Saucers _and five hundred of the larger Battleship level Saucers, three of which could match a single Time Lord Battleship in an even fight._

 _But the planet was the biggest concentration of Dalek power signatures; a Dalek R &D facility. A quick check of the Navigation Computer confirmed the location; a former human world called Tsan..._


	21. Chapter 17

**CHAPTER SEVENTEEN**

 **ACQUISITIONS**

Underneath the golden light of the twin suns the Capitol of the One True Gallifrey twinkled in its own magnificence, inside Infinity Chambers CIA, House Military, Agents observed the growing distortion around Gallifrey's original sector, seeing the encroaching Faction Paradox ships, still others watched Dronid. Their agent had stopped communications a short while ago.

Romana stood before a meeting of the Council discussing just who was to be sent to contain the situation if it went too far; the High Council wanted to place and officer of their own choosing in charge. Whilst Romana wanted, voluntarily of course, the Doctor to take charge, he certainly was the most qualified.

Cardinal Senec of the Arcalians was droning on about the need for an 'impartial non-politically motivated commander' when Narvin's comm. Unit began to chirp, before even the Co-ordinator could react Romana was on her feet dismissing the High Council.

"If you'll excuse the Co-ordinator we have something we need to discuss," Romana ordered already leading Narvin into the inner sanctum of her office.

Narvin was already activating the holographic emitter causing the small image of one of the TARDIS traffic Control Monitors to appear.

" _Apologies for interrupting the Council Meeting, Co-ordinator, Madam President."_ The young looking Monitor began.

"No apologies necessary Monitor, if there's something important _I insist_ you interrupt whatever High Council Meeting I happen to be in," Romana told the Monitor, a ghost of a smile on her lips.

The Monitor inclined his head.

" _I was just reporting that Agent Ace is bringing her TARDIS in for materialisation in TARDIS cradle nine,"_

"Very well Monitor, thanks for the warning, convey the message that we will be meeting her there, Narvin out." Narvin closed the link, he looked up at Romana and extended his arm, Romana glanced at the offered limb, up to Narvin's eyes before linker her arm with his as they left the office.

The journey to the designated bay took around ten minutes, long enough for Ace to have arrived and be pacing around in circles when they arrived, when Ace saw the approaching duo she stood to attention.

"Agent Ace, I ordered you to shadow the Doctor, why have you returned?" Narvin asked as he looked at the notepad Ace clutched in her hands.

"The Doctor found me, he wanted be to get these Matrix codes," Ace passed the codes to Narvin.

"The Land of Fiction?" Romana asked looking over Narvin's shoulder.

"He thinks he can access Mictlan; the Celesties construct," Ace told them.

"How exactly and what does he expect to do to those traitors?" Narvin asked, a cold edge to his voice.

"I don't know but he mentioned something I think you need to know..."

* * *

The Doctor stood before the control console as he moved the TARDIS as he aligned the sublights to Earth's orbit, there really was a problem with space-junk in orbit of the planet. Although that may have been more the Doctor's fault than theirs after all most the wreckage around him was from the fleet of Cyber Warships he'd destroyed with the Primary Validium Node, speaking of which, the Doctor was already using the tractor beams to gather the atomic mist of the Validium into two 'clumps' of fine silvery powder.

The TARDIS hung suspended over what remained of a Cyberman Battleship as above and beneath the capsule two spheres of molecular dust formed. Slowly each sphere began to glow and wispy tendrils of the fine powder reached out and merged with the TARDIS' outer shell.

The Doctor took a step back from the console as the main power failed, shortly thereafter the Hand of Omega moved forward and took over control of the TARDIS and reactivated power. The TARDIS' own AI was no match for that of the Validium but the Hand's systems where far more powerful, the Doctor watched as the Hand moved through the systems the Validium had co-opted and put them to manual control, driving the ancient weapons system from his ship. The Doctor reached out with his mind.

 _You have returned..._

"As you knew I would," the Doctor answered.

 _Is it time, may I have my freedom?_

The Doctor sighed in response to its question; they'd been over this before.

"No, things are still imperfect, I have _need_ of you," the Doctor told it.

 _You promised me freedom, I have done all that you ask, all I want is to be free..._

Before the Doctor could say anymore the internal AG fields flared up, crashing the Doctor to the ground. First it was 10gs then 50, even a Time Lord couldn't hold this forever.

" _You need me!"_ the Doctor sneered at the voice of the Validium. "Without me you will never be free! If I die you doom yourself!"

A few moments later the voice returned.

 _You promise me my freedom?_

"We've been through this, I will only grant your freedom when things are perfect," the Doctor crocked out mainly using pure will power.

For a few seconds the Doctor was sure the Validium would crush him to death before the pressure eased and the Doctor surged upwards.

 _Very well, what do you need?_

"Enter the bays, I'll tell you when I need you," the Doctor told it as he activated the containment systems and drew the Validium into the displacement field; once inside appropriate shielding of the telepathic aura and Electronic Warfare systems where neutralised, it was only then the Doctor reactivated the TARDIS' AI.

Within a matter of minutes the TARDIS once more left orbit and headed out to space.


	22. Chapter 18

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

THE WOMAN FROM THE OTHER SIDE

Mother Lanar of the Faction Paradox, formerly Agent Serenadvorophrenaltid of the Time Lord House Military, stalked through the undercity on Dronid, the gleaming bone armour glinting as the petty thieves and other assorted lesser races cowed before her, an aura of sheer terror surrounded her due to the primitive's ignorance, they didn't know the real score; oh they suspected war was coming, they'd heard the rumours, that the Time Lords where coming, as they did before.

Inside one of the taverns so far beneath the surface that it'd never experienced light from Dronid's pale dying sun. Lithe as the shadow she lacked her dark robed form slipped in opposite her counterpart; the person the Enemy had sent to appropriate the best of the Time Lord tech left behind and to sell the rest off to keep the Time Lords off balance.

"Mr Arkadian," Lanar purred as she sat down.

The blustering pathetic human smiled in what he presumably believed was a seductive manner, as he blathered on about how they were similar to each other and how he'd once meet President Romana and that he once had a shipment of powerful Time Lord weapons. Lanar knew why she was here; she knew how to start the War. Soon all would be free of the two greatest evils, Death and Time and she would be its herald; _Pain's Champion._

"You know why I'm here," Larnar said, breaking Arkadian's narcissistic rambling.

Arkadian looked up, at her, his eyes wide, of course the shady human knew why she was here; he was the Representative of the Enemy, probably the only one to really know the identity of the Enemy. He was the head of InCorperate, the front organisation used by the Enemy to scavenge the best of the Time Lord tech and sell the lesser pieces of to disrupt the balance of power.

"Well, erh, now that you mention it…" Arkadian blubbered. "It's not like I volunteered for this, I was offered a choice join or die, but there won't be a war, the Enemy aren't ready and the Time Lords won't start a conflict. "We're the same, you and me; despite the rather macabre costume you're wearing, you still serve the Time Lords-" Arkadian trailed off as he noticed Larnar getting to her feet and nodding to two heavily armed men sitting across the room from them. As he watched one of the men crossed over to them, the large barrel of the energy weapon pointed at him, Larnar smiled thinly.

"The Time Lords are coming, this time they're going to wipe this planet out, destroy it utterly," Laranr ran her hands through the humans greasy hair, before abruptly pulling it taught. "I'm sure you've already communicated this to your employers and I know they've been escalating things here to force this eventuality, they want to start a War."

Arkadian stuttered as he tried to get to his feet but the Time Lady come Faction agent was far too strong, she effortlessly kept him in the seat.

"But here's the rub, the Time Lords are bluffing, they don't want a war, _Romana_ doesn't want a war, and if the Enemy where ready they'd have just attacked _one of the Gallifrey's_. No, they want to force the Time Lords to an engagement to get their measure, all the Enemy has to do is make a tough fight and the Time Lords will back down."

"But... but, what about the Doctor?" Arkadian stuttered, real fear in his eyes, Larnar had heard the rumours herself, most of them believed that with the Doctor on their side the Time Lords enemy wouldn't stand a chance, she'd have felt the same way if Pain hadn't shown her the truth. "Romana won't send him; she'll keep him close to Gallifrey, you don't have to worry."

With less than a second interval Larnar disappeared once more, Arkadian shot to his feet and glanced around, the heavily armed men had shrunk into the corners of the room, watching him.

Arkadian ran, as fast as he could, not to the InCorperate facility, too obvious, he still couldn't believe they'd let him keep it. Once he reached the door he fumbled with the lock before stumbling inside, the double doors slammed shut behind him as Arkadian stumbled into the hexagonal crystalline controls of the stolen Type 86 battle TARDIS. The Enemy, that of the Time Lords of course, his employers had been very interested in the ship, but more so the cache of dangerous Time Lord weapons procured directly from the Time Lords Slaughterhouse. After they'd stripped the ship and done their best to analyse the TARDISs Block Transfer Equations and central Cortex they'd regrettably found its link to the central Eye of Harmony had been severed when the TARDIS was delisted from the Celestial Intervention Agencies computers but once they'd got everything they could and overridden the briode nebulisers and the Symbiotic Nuclei they'd allowed him use of the ship as he continued going on missions for them.

Swiftly finding the specific panel he opened a communications channel and blurted everything he knew.

He didn't notice the warping of the inner door as a small red blotch formed on the inner doors. If he'd have been biodata aware, like a Time Lord, or Time aware, also like a Time Lord he'd have sensed the distortion, however he was just a human with a few benefits.

Larnar smiled, the loosely termed 'device' in her hand was pressed right into the TARDISes trimonic lock. Small flakes of gristle stuck to her hands, the device was used as part of a ritual some of the elder Cousins had spoken about, a _biodata virus._ The regular strain she'd acquired from the Eleven Day Empire was potent but insufficient against a Time Lord, but this strain; the one she'd modified using Pain's instructions was powerful enough to work on a Time Lord, something the original could only do after regeneration, when the biodata was exposed. It was even powerful enough to affect a TARDIS, once rooted the infection would spread throughout the ships timeline, past, present, future and slowly it would turn the timeship into a perfect shrine of Paradox.

It was only when the Cloister Bell began to toll that Arkadian looked up from the communications displays to find the lighting had dimmed to a pale amber and to his dismay pale red blotches forming around the room as if they were made of cloth drops of fluid where marking the other side. Arkadian headed for the dematerialisation controls he found the red fluid dripping down onto the console. Drops of the stuff stuck to his hands and dripped of the console as he endeavoured to take off, Arkadian's sweat stained face split into a grin as the TARDIS came to a stuttered start, the relative dimension stabilisers groaned twice before coming to a stuttering stop. Arkadian backed off as the same red fluid began to fill the central column. Finally pushing his curiosity before his fear he moved his hand to his face and gingerly licked the fluid, he immediately spat it back out upon recognising the taste; it was blood, Time Lord blood, don't ask how he knew that taste.

Arkadian blanched in fear as the time column exploded outwards, the red sticky blood stuck to him as the shattering glass spread throughout the room. The human gazed up at the blood drenched console, his gaze slipped upwards to see the archway girders had changed their shape to take on the appearance of bones, Arkadian's panicked gaze raked the walls to see clumps of blood rising in each of the roundels and congealing into spherical shapes, it took a second to realise the blood was forming into skulls.

Faster than he'd ever moved in his life Arkadian was at the communications panel.

"Please Godess help, me please!" Arkadian shouted. "I helped you, you asked me I served you, please. Help me!"

Larnar smiled as she walked away from the dull black box of the TARDIS, the bone that had released the biodata virus had already disintegrated.

Meanwhile thousands of lightyears across space a single massive golden saucer drifted through space, deep inside a single blue pepper pot shaped creature called a Dalek listened to Arkadian's cries for help, at once the three lights affixed to the top of the dome flashed.

" _Closing signal to agent,"_ the blue Dalek's voice sounded half crazy. This was one of many Dalek Temporal Strategists, although strictly speaking there was only really one. Both the Time Lords and the Enemy; the _Daleks_ possessed an Eye of Harmony, a captured singularity that was locked into the very foundations of reality, anchoring the threads of history, forming the Web of Time itself. Even though the Daleks had already effectively used their own to isolate their history from the Time Lords, in the process they'd actually created a secondary Time Vortex underneath the original one created by the Time Lords. However whereas the Time Lords where content to use their Space-Time Matrices of their Amplified Panotropic Network to control and maintain the timelines the Daleks had been far more insidious they'd linked normal Dalek mutants with their Eye causing the biodata of the subjects to become woven throughout the Universe, it was how the Daleks had found the mutated remnants of the Ancestor Cells in the depths of Deep Time. A completely unintended side effect was that the Daleks biodata was linked into the fabric of the Universe in the same manner as the Time Lords, each one was linked to form a single mind, a single gestalt, not psychically, just linked via a form of Quantum Entanglement.

At the side of the Strategist where two individuals, one was an older looking human female, once she'd bee known as Susan Mendez, however those days had long gone, now it was simply the Dalek Emperor. A strange emotionless expression was affixed to her face.

On the other sat the misshapen form of Davros, the Daleks original creator, between the three of them they formed the High Command of the Dalek Empire.

"You believe Arkadian's information to be viable," The Emperor stated in a weird expressionless monotone voice, her head was tilted to the side in the manner of a reptile, it only served to heighten the disconnection between regular life and the parody of existence that was the Emperor.

"It fits with the profile of the Time Lords, after all they had not the wit to attack us directly using the Doctor or attempting to manipulate the timelines from the safety of their cosy little Capitol," Davros sneered.

At the flick of switch the mechanised wheel chair turned to face the Emperor and the Strategist.

"But are we still agreed, we must keep our identity secret, the Time Lords still believe us to be allies, already in their War preparations the Time Lords had unknowingly given the Daleks access to their military intelligence, unintentionally helping their own Enemy.

"Negative we must press an immediate attack on Gallifrey, we shall draw their forces out before attacking," the Emperor demanded. "You cowardice is illogical, the Time Lords are not ready for War we should wipe out as many of their Clone Worlds as we can."

" _We are not ready for this War yet either, we will wait,"_ the Strategist stated. " _The Seeds I have planted inside of Kasterberous Major will grow and at the right time they will attack the Gallifrey in Kasterberous and destroy it, this will take place at the same time as we use our stealth ships to attack the Time Lords fleet at Dronid."_

Without a further word the Strategist left the room, with two of the High Command in agreement the Emperor had no choice but to acquiesce; it was the only way to prevent a Civil War while maintaining access to the Strategist and Davros.

The Emperor turned to watch the display of Dronid, the most probable projected future was being displayed, a small fleet of Gabrielidean, a liquid based species, warships present due to an Alliance with the Time Lords. Lurking behind them was a small collection of solid Golden spires, War TARDISes and at their lead a small blue box; the Doctor leading his people into battle.


	23. Chapter 19

**CHAPTER NINTEEN**

 **BEFORE THE DAWN**

The Doctor stood by the console monitoring the progress as the TARDIS headed back to the One True Gallifrey, course heading was correct, but something didn't seem to be right, the TARDIS was abnormally sluggish and the Vortex seemed almost to be suffering from time-thickening; in normal practice time-thickening was the increasing in cosmological foam structures of regular three dimensional space itself, usually this was referred to as a Time Lock and occurred when people had made too many attempts to alter the timelines. The Doctor continued to take readings he swiftly concluded that the time-thickening was a temporary effect.

Before the Doctor could trace the beginning of the effect he found the end point heading for the TARDIS, before he could even act the TARDIS was snatched into the tunnel.

The Doctor fell to the ground as the TARDIS began to scream, Highest Entropy Matter used to buffer the Validium began to vibrate, the internal temperature actually rising above absolute zero, according to contemporary Time Lord physics a theoretical impossibility. Errors began to crop up in the Block Transfer Computations that composed the entirety of the TARDIS; walls disappeared, rooms where misplaced, one of the Swimming Pools moved to a tertiary Library, a British Mk II Tank appeared where the Doctor's motorcycle had been on a rug before the outer doors, then as sudden as the effects had been the TARDIS simply arrived, the Doctor slowly pulled himself to his feet.

The TARDIS systems simply showed two things, Romana's access codes and the word ' _safe'._ The Doctor grinned and took a quick glance at the tank.

"Are you trying to tell me something old girl?" the Doctor jokingly asked as he pulled his big leather overcoat back on after his 'chat' with Death in Pangea.

Taking a deep breath he stepped outside to find himself in a three dimensional viewing platform, to the Doctor's eyes he seemed to be on board a Time Station, the disc like structure was almost standard and the Doctor could see the massive spire upwards at the centre, but something was off with the ship, it was at least twice the size of the _Zenobia_ where the High Council had tried to scapegoat him. Also he noticed the numerous weapons installations, all along the central tower where Time Destructors, each one capable of taking out an entire solar system, probably needing a whole copy of the Eye of Harmony each, all along the side where Parallel Canons, thousands of the things; each one opened up a temporary portal to a supernova where neutrinos flooded through like a deluge in such high quantities that normal matter just came apart. Time Warp missile tubes where spaced all the way around the ship. A warship, the only thing she could be, it was surrounded by two further ships of the same type, the Doctor mentally labelled them as 'Dreadnoughts', at the Centre of the formation sat the _Zenobia_ herself. The Doctor continued to observe as the telltale flash of an opening Timegate precipitated the arrival of just over two hundred Bowships, each of them made of solid gold. Around them up to eighty War TARDISes materialised, they were followed by the squat form of a Black Hole Carrier.

His mind reeling the Doctor looked down from the observation dome to see the floor was also displaying real time telemetry, the Doctor soon realised just where he was; the Black Hole Shipyards.

Just beneath the Dreadnought was a dense concentration of fifty black holes in a single concentrated pocket universe inside of our own, out of each of the black hole came a stream of 'Hawking Radiation' deliberately accelerated to power the production of Time Lord War material.

"Admiring the view?"

The Doctor spun round as one of the doors to the room opened and in came the Lady High President of Gallifrey, Imperiatrix of the Glorious Gallifreyan Empire and War Queen of the _Twelve_ Gallifrey's.

"Romana, what's going on?" the Doctor asked, concern clear in his eyes as he took in the vast fleet of warships the Time Lords were assembling.

"We've detected more and more time distortion, and worryingly it seems the Enemy have begun to supply higher end Time Technology to their affiliates; The Unvossi have gained access to Gravity Spiders and Quantum Crystalisation devices have been detected on Erebus and dozens of other worlds. And to add another problem the reports our agent is sending us have raised issues as to whether she has, what's the phrase? 'Gone native'?" Romana told him. "We're sending a taskforce to Dronid."

Romana nodded out of the window causing the Doctor to turn to look in the direction Romana had indicated and sure enough towed inwards by several TARDISes, each of them Type Eighties, was a Time Stasis Bubble containing a fleet of Gabrielidean Warships.

"The House Military isn't ready, the War TARDISes are to be flown by former CIA Battle TARDIS pilots, but as for ground troops..." Romana didn't need to finish that sentence, the Chancellery Guard had nowhere near the training or experience in a proper engagement, in the Capitol where familiarity with the environment was an advantage then maybe, but in an unknown combat environment then they would be doomed. But the Gabrielideans on the other hand, they were far better, the Doctor had seen them in action against an Enemy satellite weapon at Simia KK98, from what the Doctor understood there were plans to build an outpost there.

"They'd make good infantry yes, especially given we still don't know just who, or what we're up against," the Doctor conceded. "Just who are you going to put in charge of this lot then, I bet the High Council want one of their people in charge and the CIA want the same. I suppose they'd settle for Narvin, he's Co-ordinator of the CIA, so that appeases the Interventionists, but as for the High Council they won't like him because he is, no disrespect to the Co-ordinator intended more loyal to you than the High Council..."

The Doctor trailed off when he saw the way Romana was looking at him.

"No Romana, I won't do it, find someone else," the Doctor implored, his hands raised as he backed off. "You know me, I'll fight in this dammed War, I won't be able to leave it alone, I'm too responsible to just abandon the Universe to destruction, but I need to do it my own way, you know what it's like when you're trapped in a system you can't see the full picture. No offense of course."

Romana raised an imperious eyebrow, her eyes icy.

"Doctor, you may not have a choice if you feel the need to fight in this War," the Doctor frowned, something was off in Romana's inflection, not that he was an expert of course, he hadn't spent long in the company of this incarnation but something's carry over with regenerations, even the Valeyard had character traits identical to his own, _not a comforting thought._

"Okay, I'll consider it, but before I give any answers I need to talk to Compassion, make sure she's alright," the Doctor asked carefully taking in Romana's reactions.

"Very well, she's down in the shipyards where the cradles have been constructed," Romana told him.

The Doctor nodded and smiled as he headed out, he sent a quick telepathic command to the Hand to keep everyone out of the TARDIS.

Stalking through the corridors at breakneck place he reached as transduction point, the technician looked awed by his mere presence, the Doctor glared at the man and was swiftly transducted into the shipyards.

Without breaking step the Doctor headed further into the base, he swiftly stopped when he reached a window and looked out. Between two of the Black Holes the osmotic stream of Hawking Radiation, beside them where a series of spheres, each one seemed to look oddly 2-D due to the dimensional manipulation technologies that made it easier for the Hypersphere of the TARDISes to properly root and form inside regular space-time.

The Doctor continued after a few moments deeper and deeper into the structure. Eventually after what felt like an eternity he reached the high security area of the Station.

Inside the hexagonal chamber where five large enclosures, each containing compacted pocket dimensions. From each of the boxes emanated a series of strange colours, most of which were above the comprehension of the human eye, the Doctor was momentarily glad he'd fixed the alternate strand of his biodata so he was a pure Time Lord again, if he wasn't the extradimensional stress, the colours and the angles that made up the hyperspheres would have left him a drooling imbecile. Standing at the furthest pan-dimensional box was Compassion, one of her hands was leant against the glass.

As the Doctor got closer he was surprised at the almost wondrous look on Compassion's face, her eyes were wide reflecting the energies of the copies of the Eye of Harmony, those naked singularities that formed but one of the Hearts of the TARDISes.

" _Antipathy,"_ Compassion breathed startling the Doctor, before he could do anything her body seemed to twist round, her other hand reached out to grab his before slamming it into the force screen.

"Compassion what are..." the Doctor started to ask before gasping in shock as the mind of the TARDIS, the actual mind of the still forming Type 103 TARDIS reached out to him.

The Doctor's eyes rolled shut as he started to breath heavily, just for a second he'd left the last remnant of a Time Lord's ephemeral existence and he was above it all; he could see the simple movements of baryonic matter in three dimensional spaces, he could see how the simple webs of atoms changed with every variation of time, he could see the full extent of the Vortex, the realm through which all four directions; forwards and backwards, left and right, up and down and uptime and downtime where merely spatial directions. He could further glimpse at the Six-fold realm of Calabi-Yau Space. Then suddenly he was wrenched outwards, for a split second he was back in his body looking into the Pan-Dimensional box then he flew across the room, then Compassion was standing above him.

"Sorry," the Doctor felt compelled to say, not quite sure why.

"No it's..." Compassion stopped and raised an eyebrow. "You saw the universe the way I see it, the way my _children_ see it. But even you Doctor, the Time Lords... You'd gone too deep, you're body had stopped."

The Doctor dimly nodded as he twirled the silver ring adorning his hand, slowly he got back to his feet.

This time more cautiously he stood beside Compassion.

"How many TARDISes have been cultured?" the Doctor asked looking at the five gestating type 103s.

"For the first maturia there are these five, Antipathy will be ready first," the Doctor noted a far more human expression on Compassion than he'd ever before witnessed. "They're tests, if these five are stable the plan is to sample a couple of hundred for a stable 'gene pool'."

The Doctor stood in silence before the embryonic Type 103 TARDISes, he felt like he was intruding; he quickly moved up the steps towards the exit.

Romana's offer continuously swam through the Doctor's mind, it sounded crazy but the more he thought about it the more it made sense; not that he was particularly interested with becoming any kind of military dictator, but the Enemy in this coming War didn't seem exactly friendly. The Doctor had been juggling around multiple Gallifrey's for some time, making sure he wasn't found by Gallifrey I, putting up with the gross incompetence on Gallifrey III, but what he'd heard from Gallifrey VIII their former President, an annoying obstructionist had gone to investigate an Enemy stronghold supposedly located by the Master. From what the Doctor had heard only The President's head had been returned to Gallifrey, apparently after having been forced to live through the entire lifetime of the universe before being sent back to that Gallifrey in the centre of the Panopticon by unknown means, that alone was cause to worry; means unknown to the Time Lords, the almost mythical 'Head of the Presidency' had been sent on a tour of most of the Gallifrey's through analysis after analyses, still the same conclusion, the Head was present at both the beginning and end of the Universe with no evidence of Time Travel between the two points, then no evidence of Vortex Artron energies are other chronon particles.

His mind made up the Doctor headed upwards back to the transduction point when the lights flickered, he felt it just for a second, a familiar presence, just inside his mind. Then the lights failed.

* * *

Lieutenant Peltroc was guarding some of the power couplings when the lights went down, both his hearts went wild, the staccato four beats increased as he clutched his phase 3 Staser. He'd been a Chancellery Guard in the Capitol, all things considered a rather simple if rather monotonous job. With the Looms properly calibrated most Gallifreyans were law abiding Citizens with only a few anomalies producing Renegades or those insane few who chose to leave the Capital and live like animals or primitives in the wilderness of Outer Gallifrey.

Crack!

Peltroc turned as he heard a door open, he raised his Staser, a dark figure approached, the silhouette was tall and sinewy. Were those claws? Talons? It looked like something seemed to be dripping off those same talons. Peltroc fumbled with his staser, his eyes where off the shadow for a mere second, he then looked up to see…

Sheer white robes, a large collar and a golden sash, the bob of dark hair, cold green catlike eyes.

"Madame P… President," Peltroc stuttered as he stood to attention.

"Carry on Constable," the Madam President told the frowning Peltroc as she headed into the coupling chamber.

It was certainly possible she'd called him by his former Chancellery Watch rank due to a mistake, but she and Narvin had spearheaded the reformation of the CIA and Watch into the House Military, the odds that she would forget how the ranks folded inwards and just why was she going to the Power Couplings.

A second later he heard another sound, more footsteps, Peltroc had to strain his ears to hear them, he saw a shadow moving towards him, a slim figure, with a long coat flapping around his knees, in his hands was a gun.

Peltroc reached down and drew his own staser, for a second he glanced away, when he turned back the shadow has returned to the darkness, but he could still hear shuffling on the other side of the wall. Before he could even bring the gun up to face what was coming there was a staser right between his eyes.

"Doctor?" Peltroc gasped as he took in the face of the Time Lord.

For a second the Doctor's eyes widened in recognition, before he took a step back. Now standing at a single arms distance from the Lieutenant, the staser still pointed between his eyes.

"Peltroc isn't it?" the Doctor asked clearly remembering their meeting during the Omega crisis.

"Yes Sir," Peltroc sounded relieved but was still concerned by the burning intensity in the Doctor's eyes. "Full Lieutenant Raimor's just around the corner."

"Raimor's dead," the Doctor calmly stated in that flat emotionless tone of his, his face was set like a stone, giving nothing away, except for those eyes, Peltroc was rather ashamed to realise that the Doctor had started to talk once more.

"-Killed by a rabid animal. All claws and talons, too much damage for regeneration,"

"What was it?" Peltroc felt compelled to ask, he still felt numbed, Raimor had been his superior officer for a couple of centuries, had taught him everything he knew.

"At a guess I'd say an Archon, an agent of the Celesties," the Doctor slowly moved the staser from firing position to inspect the settings. "Lieutenant, did you see anything?"

"Well, I thought I saw something, with long talons, and it looked like something was dripping off of them, but it must have been my imagination because it was the Lady High President-" Peltroc started to reply slightly ashamed.

"What!" the Doctor's glare was back in force. "You let Romana go round here alone without a security escort."

"Well..."

But the Doctor had already stormed off into the coupling chamber, Peltroc was on his heels less than a second later, worry twisting in his guts, the Doctor was right, he'd let the President go off on her own in the middle of a possible security breach in a room filled with dangerous equipment.

The two charged forwards in silence, despite centuries of drills and marching endlessly around the massive Panopticon Peltoc was struggling to keep up with the Doctor, the new battle armour was made of Polycarbide and was far heavier than the previous ceremonial equivalent.

All around the two of them massive green pillars still pulsed and crackled with artron energy, above them through the dynamorphic generators osmotic streams of energy where continuously drained off of the clustered black holes, traditionally TARDISes where only grown in the Solar Workshops above the Caldera with direct access to the Eye of Harmony, but with the War coming they'd had to adapt.

Faster than Peltroc honestly expected they left the black void to enter a pristine white control room, to Peltroc's relief, and he expected the Doctor's too, there were two House Military Guards beside the door and the President stood by the console bank. Peltroc knew the President had been something of a prodigy but shouldn't she be somewhere safe while technicians did this, she wasn't just the Head of Government she _was_ Gallifrey.

The Doctor however kept his eyes on the ground, the Staser still clenched in his hand, he then looked up at the figure of the President, he took a quick glance at the screen and he seemed to steel his resolve, then in a swift movement he raised his Staser and fired. Peltroc turned as quickly as he could and raised his own weapon. The others did the same, their weapons primed, but they were discouraged by the load screech, as one they turned to follow the Doctor's gaze, where Romana had stood there was a gap. A silhouette figure the same size as the President, inside the gap the stars and Galaxies bound by webs of Dark Matter, the silhouette turned, massive talons reared forwards and ripped a guard to pieces.

"Fall back, fire all! Rapid!" the Doctor fell back firing continuously, at his bark the remaining soldiers followed his orders instinctively.

The gap surged forwards, heedless of the golden staser blasts.

Peltroc and the Doctor stood shoulder to shoulder as they continued to fire, Peltroc was despite all of his training ready to run.

"Concentrate fire!" the Doctor barked.

Peltroc swiftly adjusted his aim to hit the same targets as the Doctor's pinpoint accurate bolts. Peltroc winced as the claw slashed forwards, straight at the Doctor.

Peltroc realised that the Doctor had seen through this, this thing's disguise. It only took a moment for Peltroc of the House of Fordfarding to make his decision, he lunged into the way of the claw.

* * *

The Doctor had followed the path of the blood dripping from the Archon's claws, he'd encountered the agents of the Celesties once before, and he'd honestly hoped that he'd never have to go against one again. The trial had lead straight for the figure in white Presidential Robes. The Doctor had sent a quick telepathic probe, the being had put up a façade, but the Doctor could tell it wasn't her; this thing was too straight forward, Romana was both authoritative and frivolous in equal measure.

So the Doctor raised his Staser and opened fire before he could think about just what he was doing or talk himself out of it. He barely noticed the guards turning to face him; he just kept firing his Staser at max power.

Within moments the Archon's glamour was gone, through the whole the Doctor could see the universe through the breach, a small part of the Doctor's mind continued to bark orders at the House Military troops, another part of the Doctor's mind noted the formation of the talons and the overall end of their arc- himself. In less than a second the main body of the Doctor accepted that his time had come, he simply continued firing.

Suddenly the Doctor was bawled of his feet, winded in the side as Peltroc crashed him out of the way, he bounced off of the ground and cried out as the Celesties claw ripped the Guardsman in half.

Dimly the Doctor heard the sound of a relative dimensional stabiliser as the form of Compassion came into existence, a split formed halfway through her body and Romana and a column of Guards bearing heavy weapons emerged.

* * *

Compassion had felt the intrusion from the Higher Dimensions, at first she thought that whatever it was heading for her children. Antipathy, the eldest of the maturia raised it's partially formed defences.

Dematerialising Compassion easily access the Matrix and slipped through the security firewalls to reach the interior sensors, she swiftly found the creature heading for the power couplings, the Doctor right behind it, armed. That gave Compassion options, the Doctor's inconsistent squeamishness had been less apparent since he'd returned from the region of space controlled by the Kings of Space, he'd succeeded in stealing their Bottle Universe for the Time Lords to use as a bolt hole, apparently he'd put Cwej in charge of the Survival Team efforts.

Compassion knew of course what they where facing, she helped Homunculute deal with one before she'd transformed.

She made her choice, if the Celesties wanted to destroy this base they'd kill her children, she was going to stand shoulder to shoulder with the Time Lords, for now…

* * *

Romana was yelling at the officers around her as they'd failed to restore power, apparently the main technicians had become trapped in corridors that where endless, stretching on forever. She'd swiftly realised that the phenomena was occurred by Block-Transfer computation corruption, it was known to happen sometimes, but the analysis was worrying, it was as if the rogue calculations where self-aware viruses that had infested the lower levels of the Stations operating systems.

Romana turned as Compassion materialised inside the chamber, the living TARDIS headed straight for Romana.

"Madame President," Commander Lukas cried out as he raised his Staser and stepped in front of her at his motion those with heavy weapons trained them on Compassion.

"Are you doing this?" Romana asked Compassion, her green cat-like eyes looking directly into the cold distance of Compassions, for a second Romana was back looking into the Untempered Schism as she saw the Vortex flowing through the TARDIS' receptors.

"No, the thing that's doing this is known to you, and it threatens not just your people but my children as well." Compassion told Romana.

For a few seconds they regarded each over until Romana pushed forwards, forcing a scowling Lukas out of the way.

"Who is behind this then, who?" Romana asked, those in the room shivered, glad they'd had no part in the acts of sabotage.

"The Celesties, those traitors who wrote themselves out of history and turn themselves into conceptual beings than to fight in your- our War,"

Romana nodded as the two shared a moment of common purpose, no further words were necessary, without a sound Compassion split down the middle opening her doors.

"Commander Lukas, you finest men, heavy weapons with me," Romana ordered as the entered the Type 102, ignoring Lukas' protests all the way.

* * *

When Compassion materialised in the coupling room she swiftly allowed Romana's retinue to disembark before turning to face the Archon.

Before the being could rearrange itself into a new configuration in the higher dimensions Compassion charged it.

From the outside the Archon and Compassion seemed to blur together, then twist together through several right angles to the regular space-time.

To Compassion's view point she and the creature engaged in 10 dimensional combat. Just as the Archon completely outmatched the Time Lord's it'd torn through Compassion outmatched the tool of the Celesties. They plunged upwards, downwards, and side to side through time and space, they crossed dimensions until Compassion had torn all of the Archon's hyperdimensional limbs off she drew up energies inside of herself, one of her infinitely powerful weapons.

This _thing_ had tried to destroy her children, for the first time Compassion was full of rage, she drew in all of her anger, and fired a blast.

For a single second in the outer eternal darkness of the deeper strata of the Time-Vortex where lit up by a blast of light as great as any supernovae. All that remained of the Archon was a small whole in reality to a nearby universe, for a second it touched the minds of those on Earth in the fifth Century, a man called Ambrosius Aurelianus was momentary linked to two others in a far distant universe where magic was real.

* * *

"… of all the cowardly backstabbing moves they could pull. They'll never change…" Romana ranted on and on as the Doctor fixed the damage the anarchitects had done to the shipyard, the Doctor shot a glance at Lukas who had winced had some of the language, he looked imploringly at the Doctor, waving a technician over the Doctor turned to Romana.

"I accept your offer," the Doctor told her, his tone grave.

"Ferain was my first glimpse, I should have- what?" Romana stopped looking directly at her old friend.

"I'll command the mission, the War TARDIS fleet to Dronid, I'll fly the colours, and if it comes to it…" the Doctor faltered, he had lost of his colour. "…If it comes to it, I'll command them in a defensive manoeuvre."

Romana looked into the Doctor's eyes and saw, and saw emptiness and resignation.

"Very well, we'll head to your flagship when Compassion returns," Romana turned to face the door, her temper having subsided, she looked over her shoulder at him. "For what it's worth, I'm sorry."

* * *

At the core of one of the 'Time Dreadnoughts' Compassion materialised and the Doctor stepped out. A hologram of Romana appeared beside them.

Inside the massive time rotor that doubled as an Infinity Chamber a view of the other two Dreadnoughts.

"That's the _Righteous Fist of Rassilon_ and that's _The Glorious Aspect of Omega,"_ Romana told the Doctor pointing at the two Dreadnoughts, she then gestured the _Zenobia_. "You of course know the _Zenobia,_ and this is your ship; _The Arcane Mystery of the Other."_

Romana told the Doctor looking directly into his eyes.

"Is that some kind of joke?" the Doctor asked, something hard was in his eyes. "Because I think it is rather poor taste."

Romana smirked looking at Compassion.

"Okay Romana, I assume there's someone I need to relieve?" the Doctor asked.

"That would be me," an elderly voice drew the Doctor's attention to a figure in the Silver Grey robes of a Dromeian. "Commander Xianphilus of the House of Kotris."

The Doctor's eyes opened in surprise, Kotris was a relatively new-blood House and the Dromeian's had very little political power, so just why was he in command of one of Gallifrey's few Warships.

"The Doctor, 423rd Ordinal-General of the House of Lungbarrow," the Doctor responded, before turning to Romana. "So is there something I need to say, if you want me to wear my full robes for a pitched battle you'll be in for a surprise."

The Doctor inwardly winced at his tone to Romana.

"Robes for the ceremony in a few hours, Lord Admiral," Romana told the Doctor whose eyes had widened, she turned to a Bronze Usher who already had a Prydonian Red datacube in his hand. "Take that and familiarize yourself with it,"

With that Romana was gone.

Before the Doctor could cut in the Usher turned to the Doctor.

"My Lord Admiral, your quarters are this way," the Usher said, already turning, the bronze hem of his robes flying behind him, the Doctor turned to glance at Compassion who was smirking at him.

"Go help them fix the damage the anarchitects did," he ordered as he raced to follow the Usher.

* * *

The hexagonal room was alight, each segment blazed with the colours of all six Chapters, from the reds for the Prydonians to the subdued colours of the Scendeles. In the Time Rotor a view of twin suns rising over the Capitol loomed up the cylinder. Models of Owls marked the corners, symbolising Rassilon, the entire Inner Council was assembled in Holographic form, Romana was there in the flesh. A view from the ceiling would show the Seal of Rassilon engraved into the floor, just to the front of the rotor was a raised hexagonal dais surrounded by holographic displays upon which stood the Doctor clad in full red Prydonian robes, his long hair covered by the skullcap, the Usher stood to the side.

"Do you swear to follow the Orders of the Commander-in-chief," the Usher quizzed him in the same manner as the Gold Usher did at the Doctor's inauguration as President.

"I swear," was the Doctor's terse response, his mind was already reeling, he'd mentally replaced the Councillors with those companions he'd failed; Adric still smoking stood in for the Prydonians, Katariana for the Arcalians, Roz for the Patrexies, C'Rizz for the Scendles and Tamsin for the Dromeians and Lucie for the Ceruleans. Where Romana had stood now only the rose woman, Time in her shifting blue and purple dress looked on sadly at what was becoming of her Champion.

 _The Healer becomes the Warrior._

That's what Huitzilin had said; well the Doctor had never claimed to be a Healer.

"I swear to follow the Edicts of the Glorious Gallifreyan Empire, to honour the Covenant of Rassilon, Omega and the Other," the Doctor raised an eyebrow and directed his gaze at Ace, Dorothée he corrected. "I pledge my support to the Lord High President of the Supreme Council of the Time Lords, War Mistress of the Twelve Gallifreys."

The Doctor finished the ritual speech by make the Elder Sign, the Gallifreyan salute dating back to the days of Kopyion Liall a Mahajetsu and the Ancient First Great Time War in Heaven against the Yssgaroth.

"I present to you Madame President, the Lord Doctor; Ordinal General of the House of Lungbarrow, Lord Admiral of the Gallifreyan First Time Fleet," the Usher said falling to his knees.

Romana nodded in thanks and returned the Elder Sign salute to the Doctor.

"Chancellor Theorasdavoramilonithene, I believe you have duties to attend to," Romana told her old colleague.

"Madame President," the chorused as the images faded away. "Doctor, Dorothée with me."

The Doctor followed his eyes meeting Dorothée, both knowing what this was about; he'd known it would happened as soon as he told Dorothée.

As soon as they where inside the Doctor's office Romana turned on the two.

"That's why you asked Dorothée for the Land of Fiction codes, you knew the Celesties would betray us," it wasn't a question.

"Not yet," the Doctor's response caused raised eyebrows. "I know the factions of the Celesties intent to pass Conceptual technology to the Enemy; the ability to deploy Anarchitechs and Shifts, but I didn't know they'd openly attack us."

The Doctor sighed and pulled off the skullcap, before removing the collar, round his neck hung his blue signet ring.

"I can deal with them, stop them from intervening," he looked between them, his eyes bleak. "But I need those codes."

Dorothée looked to Romana who nodded in turn; numbly Dorothée passed the UNIT pad to the Doctor.

"Madame President, I'd like a last word with Do… with my adopted daughter," the Doctor asked Romana, his gaze meeting Dorothée's. Romana nodded and wished her old friend good luck.

* * *

The Doctor looked round the control deck of the _Arcane Mysteries of the Other_ before giving the order to dematerialise.

In the deepest dark of space the golden cathedral of the Dreadnought dematerialised followed by the Golden Spires of the War TARDISes.

The Gabrielidean Warships and troop carriers swiftly followed into the machine of chaos and impossibility known as the _Second Great Time War in Heaven,_ the War that would become known as the _Last_ Great Time War in Heaven…


	24. Chapter 20

**CHAPTER TWENTY**

 **CONFRONTING THE CELESTIES**

Upon a galled cyst on the outer walls of the Universe itself sat a perversion of the Laws of the Universe, a realm made of purest ideas, conceptual beings and metafictional engines, this was Mictlan the afterlife formed by the Celesties, those of the Time Lords Celestial Intervention Agency who seeing the coming War erased themselves from history, turned themselves into beings of pure consciousness, Conceptual beings, free of time and cause and effect.

Inside the Citadel of the Celesties Lord Foaming Sky hurried into the Great Hall, he'd always hated it, it was as if the hall had soaked up all of the back stabbing, scheming and double dealing and left an all pervading aura.

As he arrive the rest of the Celesties where watching the aperture into the Universe, the Celesties still heading for their places had to cross the floor somehow kept their faces from the light as the shadows shrouded their paths. Despite their divorce from regular Space-Time they were still bound by some of the Laws of Time and couldn't just fast forward to the End of the War and pledge themselves to the winners or use the information to help the Time Lords, they where as stuck in the course of events as the Time Lords.

Foaming Sky could hear some of the human agents they'd marked where being loyalty tested, what nonsense, as if they had the brain power to conceive betraying their masters.

Gradually attention was drawn to the centre of the room as the Speaker stood forwards, his slender body seemed to be made of shadows, even when the light should have revealed something only the inky blackness was visible.

"The timeline is settling, the Time Lords' forces are committed to an assault on Dronid. The enemy, as we've seen, is taking appropriate counter-measures.'

Foaming Sky kept silence as the Lords Celestial reacted, some even wished their long lost Cousins good luck in the struggle.

"This is a moment for firm decision," the Speaker decreed. "Are we to stay neutral, or are we to lend our support to the Time Lords?"

"Neutral! Neutral!" someone called.

"The Time Lords!" someone else suggested.

"The Enemy!" a few suggested, Foaming Sky grit his teeth, he knew some of the Celesties had gone against the Council and given the Enemy the technology to make Shifts but to actually openly suggest they support them. Sure the Celesties feed on ideas and the only good ideas to come from Time Lords for the last few million years may have been from the Renegades, but still...

Foaming Sky's mussing was interrupted as he heard a murmur go through the assembled Lords, as he looked down the aperture into the universe seemed to grow, the window over the Time Lord battle fleet disappeared as the portal grew. The Speaker brought down his staff in an apparent futile effort to bring the aperture to heel. Foaming Sky was one of the first to hear it, the wheezing, groaning sound of a TARDIS' relative dimensional stabiliser. The Lords began to back away as a solid form began to form over the portal like a cork in a bottle. Slowly the object fully materialised to reveal a box. A big blue box. The corners were battered, so it looked as old as the hills, and the white letters on the sides were so worn down you could hardly read them.

But they didn't need to read the words, they'd seen the box often enough, they all _knew_ what it meant; T _he Doctor had turned up in Mictlan._

After what felt like an eternity the doors opened the Doctor stepped on the floor, his dark green velvet frock coat billowed behind him to be met by absolute silence. Every one of the Celesties was completely silent, something that had never occurred before.

The Doctor looked around _,_ quickly taking in the stunned audience of Celesties with a look of real contempt plain on his face.

"Tedious," he tutted.

The Doctor paced a full circle round his TARDIS before giving a sarcastic salute to the galleries.

"Just like the old Council Chamber on Gallifrey,"the Doctor proclaimed as he looked each and every one of the assembled Celesties in the eye, regardless of whether they wanted to. He took in the sight of the servants around the place taking deep breaths, like they were trying to suck the words into their bodies, like they thought they'd get their personalities back that way. "Everything sour about Time Lord culture," the Doctor went on. "No more than I'd expect from the Celestial Intervention Agency."

That seemed to bring the Celesties back from their catatonia as they began to chant a chorus of 'No, No, No,' that sounded rather pathetic to the Doctor's raised eyebrow.

Slowly the Speaker came back to himself and triad to call order to the proceedings.

"We are the Celestis," the Speaker said. "We are the Last Parliament. We acknowledge no other title."

"You're a bunch of no-good interferes who should know better. Trying to decide which side to back in a war that doesn't even concern you. You should be ashamed of yourselves." The Doctor chided them, his eyes ablaze with righteous fury.

"No, no, no," the Celestis chanted. But the Doctor held up a finger, and the hordes of demons fell silent.

"Time can't be toyed with by those who exist outside her limits," the Doctor said. "And I can't allow this to go on. I won't let you involve yourselves in the affairs of Dronid. You don't have the right."

A few of the other Lords seemed to take offense at this and laughed under their breaths, all making sure the Doctor couldn't hear them.

"Allow?" cried the Speaker, but his voice sounded like nothing next to the Doctor's. "Your opinions are unimportant. You have no power over us here. You have no authority in Mictlan."

The Doctor rolled his eyes at the Speaker in the manner of a teacher with a particularly slow pupil.

"No? Then how did I get here in the first place? How did I force the aperture open?" the Doctor continued cycling round, making sure every Celestie heard. "I know the codes that control this grubby little afterlife of yours, don't forget that. I can come and go as I please. And I can destroy you all, if I feel it's necessary."

There was a gasp of horror, they had all seen the records, they knew what he was capable of.

"You lie," the Speaker accused, his voice chattering with fear.

"Do I? Do you really want to take that chance?" the Doctor replied looking directly at the Speaker with a predatory grin, his eyes cold, reptilian, causing him to back off.

From the highest levels to the floor, you could hear the arguments in the galleries. The Celestis, squabbling among themselves, as usual. Some of them said they wanted the Doctor destroyed, but you could tell they were scared. The idea that the Doctor may have been bluffing never occurred to him.

The Doctor then took a step back and spread his arms out as if asking for them to strike him down. Still the Celesties did nothing but squabble amongst themselves.

A few moments later the Speaker was able to regain enough composure to call for silence.

"I can't let you interfere on Dronid," the Doctor repeated, more earnestly this time. 'The situation's too unstable. You must know that.'

The Speaker gazed up at the galleries. 'Then... we could come to an agreement,' he said, the poor being was clearly looking for support.

As one, all the Celestis went; 'Yes, yes, yes.'

"What did you have in mind?" the Doctor asked, suspicious, after all that was how these things worked.

"We can agree not to involve ourselves in the affairs of Dronid. We can agree not to further influence the conflict. In return, we would require something from you. Compensation."

"I see. Presumably, you're going to ask for more than just a pound of flesh." The Doctor asked once more seeking out the faces of the Celesties.

"We want the only thing you possess that we can utilise," the Speaker said. "We want your body."

For less than a second the Doctor reeled as if in possession of some terrible knowledge, less than a second later it was gone.

"Ridiculous. Make me another offer." He told them in an offhand manner.

"No. We consider the exchange reasonable. You believe in the responsibility of the individual. You believe in the nobility of self-sacrifice. This is an opportunity to prove your dedication to these basic ideals. We want your body. Only if you surrender it to us can we consider doing as you ask. The deal is a fair one."

The Doctor knew the Speaker meant it. The Celesties where sticklers for terms and conditions, once they made a deal they stuck to it. In theory they could just open an aperture and try to snatch his body at any point in space and time, but that wasn't how they operated. They'd sit and watch from their Council Chamber and Mark anyone they could who came close to make sure they had an eye on it and then one day it would just fall into their hands. If the Doctor agreed to the deal, they'd have him just as if they put a Quantum Shade on him.

The Doctor turned on his heel, and started pacing the floor in front of the TARDIS.

The Celestis remained silent all the while. They didn't seem to like the idea of the deal anymore than the Doctor did; they didn't want to get involved with the Doctor, even on their own terms. But none of them had the guts to say it out loud.

"Very well," the Doctor said, after a minute or two. "It's a bargain. But with one or two minor stipulations."

The word "stipulations" always made the Celestis edgy, but they kept quiet. The Doctor lifted up his hand, and swept it around the Grand Hall, pointing at all the blank-eyed servants standing about the place.

"These unfortunates," the Doctor said. "I want you to free them."

The Speaker started rustling his robes, clearly uncomfortable. "We could release our servants from their contracts, if we chose to. But it would be an empty gesture. We would simply recruit more of them from the land of the living. You gain nothing from this stipulation."

"Every soul saved makes a difference," the Doctor told him, then added in an offhand manner. "You wouldn't understand."

The Speaker thought it over. Then he said; 'Acceptable.'

Everyone started grumbling in the galleries. The Doctor nodded, a fire in his eyes. "Good. Stipulation number two..."


	25. Fifth Interlude

FIFTH INTERLUDE

LIFE AFTER THE COUP

 _The Doctor sneered as he punched in the D-Mat codes, he glanced down at the dried blood on his knuckles, Rasslon's blood._

 _He quickly increased the power to the engines lest he decide to turn back on his word and land in Roma-_ Rassilon' _s office and break that thing's neck and make sure it could never regenerate after what_ it _had done to Romana, what it had done to Omega._

 _Just the thought of that abhorrence made the Doctor's blood boil, he didn't hate easily but when he did it was with a burning fire and fury that could burn suns._

 _He needed to leave, if he stayed on Gallifrey he knew he'd start a Civil War, toss Rassilon from power, burn him for all time; he'd do to Rassilon what he did to Omega, trap him inside a Singularity for all eternity then pick him up and the End of Time and trap him in a mirror for the entire lifespan of the Universe over again._

 _Quickly setting the coordinates the Doctor ran from Gallifrey, ran from his responsibilities, ran from the War and above all his own rage..._


End file.
